


Big Enough Umbrella

by fancastical



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Child Abuse, Drama, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish!Peter, Lots of other Marvel characters - Freeform, M/M, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, graphic depictions of violence against a minor, past Wade/Vanessa, young PS4/Andrew Garfield!Peter, young comic!Wade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancastical/pseuds/fancastical
Summary: Peter is high key miserable at the beginning of senior year. It takes everything he's got to get out of bed sometimes, let alone go to school. It's a problem, then, that the first person to make him laugh since Uncle Ben's funeral is also the new school bully, a guy from Canada named Wade who steals money from freshmen and has no sense of propriety or, if the bruises he's always showing up with mean anything, self preservation.Wade doesn't expect to stay in New York City long. His dad never lets them stick around after people start asking questions. So it really shouldn't matter what the nerdy guy in his Spanish class thinks of him, and yet he's bending over backward for even half a smile from Peter, and making all kinds of promises he's not sure he can keep.Wade knows it's not gonna end well. But when has that ever stopped him before?
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 52
Kudos: 388
Collections: Isn't it Bromantic?, Spideypool Big Bang - The 2019 Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Spideypool Big Bang 2019! And what that means is that they provided the pliers necessary to wrench this story out of my keyboard, taking several fingernails with it. I don't know, guys. It's done. It's not perfect, but it's done. Feel absolutely free to tell me if you think there's something missing/off! I may or may not do anything about it. Who knows?  
> Thanks to [Corey5268](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Corey5268/), [NadiaHart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaHart/pseuds/NadiaHart), and [thelonebamf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelonebamf/pseuds/thelonebamf) for help with making Peter be and feel Jewish, and also with beta help in general. I know there were a couple other people who helped me, so if you recognize this story, tell me and I'll give you credit!  
> The art in this fic was created by [Romeyruu](https://www.instagram.com/romeyruu/?hl=en)!

**1 September**

Wade’s dad is a fucking asshole.

It’s not something most people who meet him would know, and that’s just another thing Wade hates about him. They’ve lived in New York City for three weeks now, and already his dad’s got a bunch of drinking buddies: work friends and neighbors who grin and nod when they pass in the hallways. They go up to the roof after work and they all drink til their wives call them down for dinner. Thomas Wilson doesn’t have a wife, not anymore, so he comes down when he feels like it. Wade wishes he’d jump off the fucking roof instead. 

Today he comes home and his dad’s not upstairs like usual. He and Logan have the boxing match up on the shitty old TV in the living room, and they barely notice his arrival. 

Wade doesn’t know how to feel about Logan. On the one hand, he’s a friend of Wade’s dad, so fuck him. On the other, he’s the reason they moved here from Weyburn, up in Saskatchewan. They didn’t even have a Burger King in Weyburn, let alone a Taco Bell. They didn’t have much of anything in Weyburn. 

New York is pretty great, actually. Nobody knows him and nobody wants to. People mind their own goddamn business. Wade feels like he’s the kind of guy who was made to live in a place like this. So Logan isn’t all bad, since he talked Tom into doing all the paperwork involved in getting two Canadian citizens the right to live and work (in Tom’s case) in the US of A. 

They’d lived in Weyburn for almost an entire six months, just long enough to really suffer the worst of the winter and the dullest part of summer, where Wade got to realize that all the half-assed friends he’d made at school didn’t give enough of a shit about him to invite him to anything when they didn’t have him right in front of their faces. 

Six months was a long time for his dad to stay in one place, these days. Wade could only hope that all the hard work involved in getting them to NYC would stop him from bussing them and all their cheap shit back to Podunk, Canada too soon. 

There was a lull in the boxing match. An ad for pickup trucks came on and Wade picked up his pace on his way to his room, not wanting to catch anybody’s attention. 

“Looks like a nasty knock on the jaw, there,” Logan said, his voice low and gruff as always. He didn’t even look away from the tv. “Where’d ya get it?”

Before Wade had a chance to answer, Tom chuckled. “That little shit’s always gettin’ in fights. Don’t even know why I enroll him in school; he just ends up sitting in detention for half of it.”

Logan might’ve had a response to that, but Wade didn’t hear it. He left the living room, fists clenched tight, and slammed his bedroom door a moment later. 

He just fucking _knew_ Tom was gonna make some kind of ‘asshole teenager’ comment, too. He could _feel_ it, and it made him wanna punch a wall. Instead, he took deep, harsh breaths until his vision stopped tunnelling and he could sit down on his bed and hide his face in his hands. 

At least school started tomorrow. He needed somewhere else to be, _yesterday._

***

**2 September**

The street signs were different in America. The trees and bushes were wrong. Everything was different. Not by much. Just enough for it to be weird. Everyone had this crazy accent, straight out of a fucking movie, even the boring kids and the teachers. He was at some fancy charter school in a much nicer part of town than where he lived, and it showed in the way these kids dressed and the kind of nice shit they carried around with them. Wade looked incredibly shabby, by comparison. Not that it really mattered.

Wade had geometry first, which was dumb, then history, which was agonizing. He got a little relief during gym, because the teacher liked it when he was up and bouncing around when it meant he was kicking ass at dodgeball. 

Nobody stood him up at the front of the class and asked him to explain who he was and what he was doing in their classroom, because it was September and everyone else’s first day, too. He seamlessly blended into the crush of students and learned quickly that he was carrying a ‘backpack’ and going to ‘high school’ as a junior. And that he was wearing ‘tennis shoes,’ even though he’d never played tennis in his fucking life. 

Wade knew how to adapt. And he needed to quickly, because this was by far one of the biggest schools he’d ever been to, and he wasn’t about to stop and ask for directions. 

By the time fourth period rolled around, he mostly had shit figured out. And that was good, because it looked like lunch was next, and he needed to start thinking about where he’d be sitting. 

He didn’t know what the layout of American cafeterias were like, but in his experience, lunch was shit when you were sitting alone, and it set you up to get fucked with. And Wade wasn’t in the mood. 

Securing social capital was an art form. Wade leaned back in his seat at the back of the Spanish classroom and glanced around with a keen eye. Couldn’t pick a cool kid. It was too risky. Getting shot down on the first day by one of them meant damaging what little novelty he had as the new guy. Same with the popular kids. 

A certain kind of guy with a specific personality was key to Wade’s success at a new school. A perfect First Day Friend was dweeby, but not dweeby enough that Wade made himself look like a loser by association. Nerdy enough to not have a ton of friends, but not fuckin’ weird enough that he obviously had no friends at all. Weasel was perfect, for example. They met in Vancouver. He was funny, kind of an asshole, and just loyal enough that Wade didn’t even ditch him once he found a more solid group. In fact, he hadn’t even deleted his snapchat, which was rare. Wade might’ve had five hundred followers, but most of them were Russian porn bots. He knew about fifteen people on there in person. 

Wade’s eyes drifted over the other kids in class and landed on a brown haired guy who was taking what looked like detailed notes, sitting a few seats up the row next to Wade’s. He had glasses and messy hair, but casual messy, not douchebag messy. He was fuckin cute, actually. 

Wade watched him for a little while longer, how he pushed his fingers through his hair absently when they were practicing conjugations, how he checked his phone and frowned when they were supposed to be copying down their first vocab list for the week. 

Yeah, he’d do just fine. 

Wade had all his stuff packed early, so the second the bell rang, he was out of his seat and following his target. He waited to see if the guy would naturally fall in with any friends from class and disqualify himself, but he didn’t. In fact, they walked all the way down one hallway together without anyone joining them, and that’s when Wade went in for the kill.

He caught up so that he was walking _with_ Cute Guy instead of trailing behind him, and stuck his hands in his pockets as he matched pace with him. Out of the corner of his eye, Wade could see his new friend’s lips pressing together as he realized what was happening. 

“Hey,” Wade said, grinning at him. It was a wide, friendly grin, very carefully calibrated _not_ to scare the kind of dude Wade approached on the first day of school. Less sharp, more goofy. “You’re in my Spanish class.”

It seemed to work. The guy’s expression cleared a little, though he still looked suspicious. “Yeah?”

“My name’s Wade,” Wade explained. 

“Uh... yeah. Okay. I’m Peter.” Peter’s expression was rapidly shifting from suspicious to confused. “Did you need something?”

“Just moved here from Canada,” Wade said cheerfully. The trick was not to give him a chance to interrupt until they were sitting down together at the lunch table. “America’s _weird_ , man, did you know there’s like... three Timmy Ho’s in this _entire_ city?! What kinda southern bullshit is that, eh?”

Peter cracked a bemused smile, and Wade kept going, pleased at positive results so soon. 

“And don’t even get me started on the money. I mighta accidentally tipped somebody a tenner last week when I meant to give ‘em a toonie.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying to me,” Peter interjected, and Wade laughed. This was going better than he’d hoped. Overplaying his canuckness might actually work in his favor. Didn’t Americans think Canadians were really polite and nice? That’d help a nerdy guy come to terms with someone as broad and mean looking as Wade trying to be friendly. Wade wasn’t picky about how he made his friends.

“That’s jokes.” He shrugged his knapsack up on one shoulder as they neared the lunchroom. “Y’know, I met a guy on the subway last week and he told me that all New Yorkers are bastards and I might as well give him my wallet and experience it firsthand. Fortunately, I don’t carry a wallet on me, just a subway pass and an old school ID card, so I thanked him for the advice and punched him in the eye.”

“I can’t tell if this is a joke or not,” Peter said, but he was engaged, and he handed Wade a tray as they got in line for food. 

“Nope, I got mugged three times last week,” Wade said. He grabbed a burger and some fries, then waited for Peter to move down so he could reach the fruit cups. “We’ve always been near-pogies, though. Not much to take.”

Peter squinted at him. “I thought Canadians spoke English.” Wade blinked. 

“And I thought Americans were all fatties with guns, but you’re pleasantly surprising me.” He winked for good measure. 

“Nah, that’s further south,” Peter said, scanning his ID. Wade followed suit, grinning when he noticed that Peter was waiting for him now. “Around here everyone’s just rude and the streets smell like piss.”

“I was wondering what that was,” Wade said as he followed Peter, weaving through the tables and the odd student in their way. “Whole place smells kinda like my Ag classroom back in Dryden. That was always either on account of the ferret or the horse cock, but I get the feeling the piss I'm smellin’ here is human.”

Peter fumbled his tray and nearly dropped it. “The-- excuse me-- horse what?”

“Horse cock,” Wade said again, as they arrived at a table. Two people were already seated, and when they heard him, they looked up with startled expressions. Wade continued on as though he hadn’t said anything particularly odd. “Y’know, like a giant horse dildo. Animal husbandry. It was a pretty rural area.”

“Who’s this?” The pretty redheaded girl was looking at him like she was hoping he’d just keep walking. Wade gave her a toothy smile in response and thought, _‘Not likely, sweetheart.’_

“Oh,” Peter said, and looked at Wade. Wade smiled at him too and sat down before he was told to go away. “Um. Yeah. This is Wade, guys. He’s from Canada.”

“Hiya,” Wade said cheerfully.

“Wade, this is Harry and MJ,” Peter said, sitting down too, with an expression on his face like he wasn’t sure quite what else to do. Wade had totally picked the right guy.

“What even _is_ a horse dildo?” This came from Harry, who Wade immediately pegged as the only person at the table who was likely to be blunt enough to tell him to go away. Wade gave his designer clothes and skeptical expression a once over and decided the punk-ass rich boy he was looking at wasn’t likely to take well to especially crude language from someone who looked as low class as Wade did.

“Well,” Wade said, opening his milk (which was in a cardboard box, what the actual fuck?), and choosing his words carefully. “Animal husbandry, like I said. If you’re gonna breed a mare, you gotta get her turned on first. Otherwise it won’t take. So y’get this big ass horse cock and ya just--”

As he spoke, he formed a circle with the fingertips and thumbs of both hands not quite touching, to show the girth of the thing, and then made several obscene gestures to demonstrate. 

“--make sweet, sweet husbandry to her.” He picked up his fork, ignoring the mildly horrified expressions of the rest of the table, and took a bite of his corn. “But I never did anything like that. Usually it was just sittin’ out though, and everything’s funnier if ya do it with a horse cock. Smackin’ people, pokin’ people in the ear, shovin’ it down your pants like you got a monster dick--”

“We get the idea,” MJ said, pink and scandalized. 

“I don’t think that’s entirely appropriate,” Harry agreed, but Peter interrupted. 

“Yeah, like you weren’t trying to trick me into googling ‘blue waffle’ yesterday, Harry,” he said, rolling his eyes. Wade burst into surprised laughter. Rich boy had hidden depths, even if he was obviously trying to hide them from his girlfriend based on how quickly his face flushed.

“Didja do it?” Wade asked. Peter shook his head.

“I’m not an idiot. I’ve been burned before.”

Wade nodded, affecting a sage expression. “Was it goatse? I bet it was goatse.” 

“Goatse is tame compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen,” Peter said, and Wade glanced at him in time to catch an especially dramatic grimace.

“Oh yeah? What about--”

“How are you liking New York so far, Wade?” MJ pointedly interrupted. Wade had to give her props for the ironclad glare she gave them all. Even he ducked his head and let the subject drop.

“It’s pretty awesome,” he said, stuffing another bite of food in his mouth. “Hopefully we’ll be here a while, but who knows. Could be a month, could be six months.”

“You don’t think you’ll stay very long?” she asked, politely curious. Wade ignored the satisfied look on Harry’s face. Pretentious fucker.

“I mean, I hope we do, but it don’t seem likely.”

“Is your family military?” Peter asked. Wade chewed and swallowed his food as he considered the question.

“Yeah, my dad’s an officer,” he said vaguely. It wasn’t a total lie. His dad _was_ an officer, before he got discharged. That was how he and Logan met, way back before Wade was even born. He worked as a welder, these days. And a piece of shit, but that didn’t have anything to do with his job. It did have to do with why they moved around so often, but that wasn’t anybody’s business but Wade’s.

The others nodded as though this explained everything, which was the usual reaction. Wade, recognising that his presence had been accepted at the table, allowed himself to fall to the background and eat while the conversation flowed around him, chiming in only occasionally when he thought he could make MJ or Peter laugh, though he quickly realized that he’d settle for just getting Peter to smile. He was a tough one. And Wade didn’t give a shit about Harry either way.

Maybe he’d sit with them tomorrow, too.

\------

After the final bell, Wade sauntered toward the exit, refusing to move any faster despite the throng of students buffeting at his sides and back. 

As the crowd thinned, Wade selected a skinny looking dude holding what looked like an iPhone X and paying no attention at all to his surroundings. His distressed designer jeans looked like they had a wallet in them that could stand to donate to a good cause. 

Wade caught up with him and strolled along at his side. When the boy didn’t notice at first, Wade reached out and smartly plucked the phone out of his hand. 

Now he had his attention. 

“Hey!” The boy looked up sharply, ready to grab for his phone until he spotted Wade’s shark like smile. He dropped his hands, hunched his shoulders, and shut his mouth.

“I can tell you’re smart,” Wade told him, scrolling around on the phone without paying too much attention to what he was looking at. “So let’s hear it, smarty pants, how much d’ya think you paid for this piece’a shit?”

Smarty Pants mumbled something, and Wade leaned in a little closer. The hallway was empty now, except for them. “What was that?” he asked. “Gotta speak up, smart guy.”

“My mom bought it for me,” the boy said, a little louder this time. 

“Your _mom_ ,” Wade said, scowling briefly. “Of course your mama bought it for ya. I’m askin’ if you know how much she _paid._ ”

When he got nothing but an uncertain shrug in return, Wade waggled his eyebrows. “Well lemme tell ya what _I_ know about it.” He tossed the phone up the air and caught it neatly. “Street value on one’a these is like, two hundred bucks, easy.”

Smarty Pants paled. “You can’t-- my mom and dad’ll kill me!”

Wade shrugged. He glanced down at the phone and flipped between apps, mostly just to keep it unlocked. “Two hundred bucks is a lotta money. It’d be dumb of me _not_ to.”

“I have-- fifty dollars in my locker!” said Smarty Pants. Wade raised his eyebrows, keeping his eyes fixed on the phone. Fifty dollars. Holy shit, he’d been expecting ten or fifteen. New Yorkers were loaded.  
  


Wade glanced up. “Lead the way, buddy.”

\------

**3 September**

Early mornings sucked balls. Wade dragged himself out of bed, stumbled into some clothes, and was out the door in ten minutes flat as a general rule. With a little cash left over from his haul yesterday, Wade decided to treat himself to a cup of coffee at the little shop between his house and school, and got the sugariest monstrosity he could devise on three hours of sleep, with an extra shot of espresso and six pumps of caramel. The steaming cup warmed his hands, even though it really wasn’t cold out yet at all, it being barely September and further south than Wade had ever lived. 

Wade finished it by the time he reached the steps outside the school building, and tossed it toward a trash can by the door, not bothering to check if it went in. He found Peter standing at his locker, juggling his bag, books, and a microscope. 

“That looks breakable,” he commented, leaning against the lockers next to Peter and watching him with his arms crossed casually. 

Peter, who had jumped and nearly dropped the microscope, gave him a narrow eyed glance and shoved half his books against Wade’s chest, barely waiting for Wade to accept them before letting go. “It is,” he said. He looked less prepared for eight am than Wade was. Maybe he should’ve brought Peter a coffee, too. He could’ve raked in some brownie points. “How do you know where my locker is?”

While this was exactly the sort of question Wade suspected he could’ve headed off with a coffee offering, it wasn’t beyond his ability to avoid. He sure as shit wasn’t about to admit he’d followed twenty steps behind Peter back to his locker after lunch yesterday when he was supposed to be going in the opposite direction to English. People didn’t like being followed around; you didn’t have to be a rocket surgeon to know that.

“I was just passing by,” he said easily. “Saw you standing there with all these--” He glanced down at the books in his arms-- “Physics and poetry books, and I thought, ‘That guy has depth. Integrity. Class.”

“You’re right about the last one,” Peter said, shouldering his bag and taking the books back. He shoved half into his locker and slammed it shut. “Class starts in three minutes. Let’s go.”

“Lead the way, new bestie,” Wade agreed. Peter hesitated long enough to throw off his stride, and rather than give him a chance to negate it, Wade blustered on without a pause for breath. “I have geometry first, which, like. Didn’t I learn everything I need to know about shapes in kindergarten? This one’s a square and this one’s a dodecahedron and this one’s a rhinoceros triangle--”

“Isosceles?” Peter interrupted, with a squint. Wade shrugged. 

“It’s shaped like a rhinoceros horn, ain’t it?” he asked, but he was still too nervous to let Peter do much talking. Peter didn’t smile much in general, as Wade had discovered. He hadn’t laughed at more than one of Wade’s jokes total since they met, and Wade was pretty much certain that if he gave him an opening, Peter would tell him to fuck off. So he didn’t. “Way I figure it, there’s no reason to come up with dumb complicated names when you could just call it what it is. So like, isosceles triangle: that’s a rhino horn. Then you have squished boxes, cans, beans, all kinds of D&D dice--”

“You play D&D?” Peter asked, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. Wade shrugged. 

“I did at one of my old schools. Not a whole lot else to do out in the middle of nowhere.” He stretched his arms behind his back as they walked through the thinning crowd to Peter’s first class, which wasn’t exactly on the way to Wade’s, but who really cared? “My character was a kickass rogue chick with dual longswords and super healing powers. Nearly ruined a friendship over those swords, but Wanda’s nobody’s bitch and she wanted two.”

Peter snorted out a laugh that surprised even him, if the look on his face was anything to go by. “You named your character Wanda?” he asked, a little smile lingering around the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t much, but Wade would absolutely take it. 

“Course I did,” Wade said, scratching at the scar tissue on his ear. “What else was I gonna name her?”

Peter smirked down at the books in his arms, and Wade counted that as a win, too. “I can’t believe you’re a bigger loser than I am,” he said, stopping outside the door to what must have been his classroom. “And a nerd, too.”

“How dare you, Petey,” Wade exclaimed, grasping at his chest in offense. “I’m the suavest motherfucker you ever met.”

“Hey, let’s not go throwing around claims we can’t back up,” Peter said, and even though he wasn’t exactly smiling anymore, his eyes were a little brighter than they had been ten minutes ago, and his body language was open. Wade beamed at him and started to speak, only to be interrupted by the bell. Peter glanced over his shoulder, then back at Wade. “I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Spanish first,” Wade said, a swell of triumph rushing through him. “Save me a seat?”

“Sure, seeya there,” Peter said, then darted into his classroom before Wade could respond. 

Flush with success, Wade sauntered off to geometry in no particular hurry. He could play the ‘I got lost’ card successfully for another three days if he was careful about it, so he could take the time to relax now and enjoy the warm, restful feeling of securing that First Day Friend.

Getting to finally see Peter smile directly at him was nice too, but then, Wade was a sucker for a pretty face. Nothing like a harmless little crush to sweeten his time here and pull him out of bed every morning. 

He’d have to figure out how to make Peter smile more often.


	2. Chapter 2

**September 10th**

Peter was a senior, and treasurer in the Science Club, which meant he had to be at the interest meeting on the first Tuesday after school started even though he’d much rather have just gone home and sat in his room. Aunt May insisted that it was good for him to keep doing the things he liked from before, so here he was, grumpy but present.

“As President of the Robotics Club--”

“Tony, we don’t  _ have _ a Robotics Club,” Jane interrupted, before all the poor little freshmen got even more confused by Tony’s wandering speech. Peter sat with his chin on his crossed arms, watching with vague interest. “We don’t have the funding, and you’re the only one with a robot. This is a science club, remember?”

“Hear, hear,” Bruce said from the back of the room, nose buried in a book. He was supposed to be taking meeting minutes, Peter noted, but whatever. It’s not like they were trying to run a successful club here or anything.

“I’m dreaming big,” Tony said, waving a sheaf of papers at Jane dismissively. “If you build it, they will come. Spend money to make money. Or whatever.”

“Tony, no,” Jane interrupted again, with a patience Peter knew he wouldn’t have in her place. “We can’t build it, actually. That’s not how money works when you don’t  _ have  _ any to begin with.”

“We could do a-- a--” Tony waved his hand again, less certain. Peter glanced around, very aware of the restlessness of their potential recruits as they fiddled with bunsen burners and rocked back and forth on their stools. This meeting needed a real focus, already.

“A fundraiser,” said one of the freshmen. All the club leaders except Tony looked askance at him, none of them wanting to discourage interest except in this very specific case. Their fearless leader didn’t need any encouragement.

“A fundraiser! That’s what I’m talking about.” Tony beamed, and Peter sighed and exchanged a beleaguered glance with Jane. He knew they should have made her president at the end of last year.

The meeting dragged on for another half hour, and Peter watched as Jane slowly gave up on trying to base their goals in reality. The freshmen were excited, anyway, and maybe Tony’s dad would cough up the money, since his kid was so gung-ho about it all. 

After all of their potential new members had signed up on the sheet and trickled out of the room, chattering excitedly, Bruce, Tony, Jane, and Peter all gathered at the table closest to Mr. Richards’ desk to compare notes. 

“We don’t have a Robotics Club,” Peter announced stubbornly, just as Tony opened his mouth. “So let’s make sure all our plans aren’t just robots, robots, robots.”

Tony smirked. “So just robots, robots? What’s our last thing, then?”

“Seriously,” Jane said, tapping her pen on a spiral bound notebook page already half full of notes. “I’m into physics, Bruce has chemistry, Peter’s got biology covered--”

“Bio-engineering,” Peter interrupted, and Jane nodded once.

“Yeah. Point is, Tony, you’re the only one who wants robots. So a fourth of this club can be about robots, got it?” She turned to the rest of the group, ignoring Tony’s pout. “Ideas?”

“What about a field trip?” said Bruce, twirling his pencil idly as he flipped through his monthly calendar. “To one of the big science firms in town? I bet that’d be a nice blend of all four.”

“I wanna do the GoPro rocket launch thing,” Peter said. “And the egg drop was a good fundraiser last year.”

“We could do a robot fight,” Tony suggested. “Have people place bets on who’ll win. They can win a prize if they’re right and we’ll--”

Bruce sighed. “That’s gambling on school property. We’ll never get permission.”

Tony opened his mouth, and Jane quickly cut in. “And if we do it anyway, we’ll absolutely get suspended.”

“We can do it somewhere else,” Tony said, scowling. “Then we can--”

Peter let his head fall onto the table with a thunk. “Oh my  _ god _ I will buy your lunch for a  _ week _ if you come up with  _ one  _ idea that isn’t robots. You should’ve run on a robot platform last year. If I knew you were gonna be this obsessed after RoboCon, I would never have voted for you.” 

Tony was silent for several long seconds. Peter wondered what his expression would be if he looked up. He decided he didn’t dare find out. 

“I’m gonna duct tape a knife to a roomba and set it loose in your house,” Tony said eventually. “Just wait, Parker. You’ll never see it coming.”

Peter groaned and kept his head down on the table. Jane laughed.

“We should get an RC car instead,” Bruce suggested. “Bet we’d get a ton of freshies joining up if we were lowkey willing to stab their bullies in the ankles for them.”

“Off school property,” Jane cut in, though a quick glance upward suggested she wasn’t as disapproving as she sounded.

“We’ll test out the prototype on Flash,” Peter agreed, not bothering to mention how expelled they’d all be if they really did it, school property or not. “I hear that Achilles’ tendon is pretty delicate.”

“That new guy wouldn’t be a bad target either,” Tony said, scribbling something down on a fresh sheet of graph paper. Peter worried it might be blueprints and tried to peek, but Tony partially shielded it from view with one arm. “Pretty sure at least two of our new members have already had to deal with him.”

“New guy?” Peter echoed, his mind immediately going to Wade. But that wasn’t likely, was it? Wade was friendly and--

“Yeah, his name’s Wade something,” Jane confirmed, peering over Tony’s shoulder, her expression more intrigued than Peter would have preferred as Tony sketched something suspiciously roomba-shaped. “I heard he stole a tablet from Tommy Shepherd.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Saw him threatening some kid for his lunch money earlier today. Classic jock asshole. Not that we needed another one of those around here, huh Peter?”

“Wade Wilson?” Peter asked, a deep frown forming between his eyebrows. 

“Yep,” Bruce said, when Jane and Tony just shrugged. “You’ve already heard of him?”

Something in Bruce’s tone had Peter looking up cautiously. Bruce was the kind of guy who’d haul off and break someone’s nose on the merest suggestion that they might’ve messed with one of his friends. Despite not being particularly well built, or a jock, he was one of the only people in school who started shit with someone like Flash and didn’t end up with his head in a toilet. Peter didn’t want to point him at Wade for no reason.

He didn’t quite know what to make of Wade, but he’d thought at least that there was no way he was a bully, with how he’d been following Peter around like a cute, foul-mouthed puppy since the first day of school. He hadn’t ever tried to beat Peter up or threaten him, and Peter knew himself to be prime bullying material. Just ask Flash.

“He’s been sitting with us at lunch,” Peter said, and all three of them stopped what they were doing to stare at Peter.

“We talking about the same person?” Tony squinted. “Blond, poor, nasty scar all down the right side of his face? Resting Pissed Face?”

“Poor isn’t a descriptive term,” Peter said, annoyed. “But yeah, that’s him. Wade. He’s been pretty nice to me. And to MJ and Harry. Are you guys sure  _ you’ve _ got the right guy?”

“Definitely,” they said in unison. 

Bruce glanced at the other two, then continued. “I saw him threatening Miles Morales a few days ago. Stole his wallet.”

Peter looked back and forth between them all, incredulous. Their expressions were sure and unwavering. “I just-- if he’s such a bully, why’s he so nice to me?”

Jane shrugged, her brows knit with concern. “Maybe he wants something from you.” 

Tony nodded, tapping his pencil on his graph paper absently. Peter flicked his eyes down to glance at it. It was definitely a weaponized roomba. He made a mental note to remind the rest of the group later that consequences really did exist, when Tony finally spoke. “Maybe he’s gonna make you do his homework.” 

“He’s a junior,” Peter said. He didn’t know why he was defending Wade so hard, except that he’d been so friendly and it was strange to think of him going after other students. “We’re in Spanish together, and I’m pretty sure he’s doing better than I am.” He paused. “We’re also both in the Art room during the same period, but I’m doing my photography independent study and he’s doing... painting, I think? I can’t help him with that.”

“Just because you’re not in his math class, doesn’t mean he can’t force you to do the homework for him,” Bruce pointed out, his posture stiff like he was stopping himself from leaping up and running off to find Wade and demand answers. School had ended more than an hour ago, which was probably what was keeping him in his seat. Most people had already gone home.

Peter shrugged. “He hasn’t tried anything like that. He just sits with us at lunch and we talk sometimes in between classes. He’s been really friendly.”

Jane looked at him suspiciously, as if Peter would bother to lie about something like this. He shrugged.

“Just watch out for him,” Bruce decided. “I heard he got that scar in a bar fight.” Tony nodded along. 

“I heard it was gambling debts, but either way man, don’t let your guard down. That’s when they get you.”

“Just like MechaRoomba?” Peter asked, leaning forward to look at the plans Tony was already halfway finished with, uncomfortable and determined to change the subject. He had wondered where the scar came from, but hadn’t dared ask out of politeness. 

Tony immediately launched into an explanation of why Peter was wrong to try to use a term like ‘mecha’ as applied to a wheeled robot, and Peter relaxed. He’d think about this whole ‘Wade the Bully’ situation later.

\----

**September 11th**

The next day, Peter still hadn’t come to any conclusions about Wade. Despite how little sleep he’d gotten the night before, he forced himself to pay attention to Wade during Spanish and then again during lunch, but Wade was just... Wade. He told stupid jokes to try to make Peter laugh, and during lunch he talked with MJ about nail polish with an astonishing amount of insight.

It’s not that he didn’t believe Bruce and Jane and Tony... he just didn’t understand. The whole situation set his teeth on edge.

Wade and Peter met at the door of the art classroom before class started, and Peter gave Wade a quick once over. He didn’t look like he’d bullied anyone since they last saw each other, but then, what would that even look like? Flash always looked calm and cool after he finished shoving someone into a locker. Part of him was already angry at Wade, furious that he could walk around looking guiltless when so many people seemed sure of his crimes. 

“Hey, Petey-pie,” Wade said, shoving him lightly through the door and following just as the bell rang. It had definitely been a friendly shove. Peter hadn’t come close to tripping or anything, but he still scowled.

“Hi,” Peter said. He sat down at his usual spot, and Wade plopped down right next to him, dropping his bag on the floor and slouching on his stool. Mr. Lenhsherr always started class off by lecturing about some general technique, then set them loose to focus on whatever medium they’d signed up for.

“Today we’re going to talk about light and shadow,” he announced as the class settled at their tables. “This is important, even in sculpting. If your piece lacks depth--”

Peter had heard this lecture before and let himself get distracted, thinking about Wade and whether he’d be a hypocrite for remaining friends with a putz like him if he really was a bully. He would be, right? He couldn’t imagine if Tony or Harry decided they wanted to be friends with Flash. He’d feel betrayed.

He tuned back into Mr. Lenhsherr’s lecture for long enough to take a few notes, and gradually lost the plot as he noticed Wade at his side, furtively gesturing to someone on their left when the teacher wasn’t paying attention.

Peter looked around and eventually spotted Clint looking at them from the other side of the room. Unexpectedly, he grinned and made a gesture back, and Peter realized abruptly that it was sign language.

Distracted from his racing thoughts, he watched their hands with fascination, trying and failing to follow their rapid movements. He could remember learning a little sign language in elementary school during some kind of diversity week, and eventually worked out that they were using a lot of letters. 

When his curiosity got the best of him, Peter leaned a little closer to Wade and whispered, “What are you saying?”

Wade glanced at him, then at Clint. Then he grinned. Across the room, Clint grinned back and made a gesture Peter was pretty sure he knew how to interpret. 

“Sign’s pretty regional,” Wade explained. By now, Mr. Lenhsherr’s lecture was over, and they were all supposed to be working on their own projects. Wade had pulled out a set of crayons and some doodles that Peter highly doubted were going to count toward his grade. “We found out we have different signs for douchebag, shithead, and bus, so far.”

“Why do you know sign language?” Peter asked, and Wade’s face did this thing it did sometimes, where his whole expression flickered, then smoothed out as if nothing had happened. Peter didn’t quite know what it meant, but it usually happened when he asked for details of Wade’s personal life. He wondered if it meant that he should stop asking. 

Wade could generally be described as evasive on the best of days. Maybe Peter really should have known better than to think Wade couldn’t be a bully. Who knew what he was hiding?

“I learned it when I was little,” Wade shrugged, which like many things he said, didn’t really answer the question Peter had asked. He kept talking like it had, though. “When we lived in Ottawa. Pissed off my friend Al, cause she was blind and she never knew what I was tryna say to her. She taught me half the curse words I know today.”

Peter figured that, in this particular case, he and Wade weren’t really close enough friends for him to be pushing on a subject like this, so instead he watched as Wade’s hands flowed through elusive conversation with Clint for a minute or so, then asked, “Where else have you lived?”

Wade dropped his hands, obviously thinking, then took a deep breath and said, “We started movin’ around when I was almost six. Regina, Kitchener, Ottawa, Brampton, Hampstead, Toronto... Mirabel, Edmonton, Dryden... then Eriksdale, then Winnipeg... Aberdeen... Calgary, and then Whitehorse had to be after that, so then Richmond, Vancouver, Weyburn-- and now here.”

“Jeez,” Peter said, startled at how many places Wade had rattled off. “That’s-- a lot.”

“Yeah,” Wade said. He didn’t elaborate, but his expression had lost some of the lightness it’d held while he was signing with Clint, and his eyes were focused on his crayon drawings. Peter ducked his head and looked at his laptop, where he had his photo editing software up and ignored, so far. He decided to get to work. Art class was no place for a confrontation, anyway.

\----

Wade skipped his last class of the day. The teacher had assured them during the previous class that nobody was allowed to set anything on fire for this assignment, and that was about as interesting as chemistry got. 

Standing at his locker, Wade did some quick calculations and decided that bringing his stuff with him wasn’t worth the hassle. None of his homework was important enough to take home, and having it on him would just slow him down.

He left his bag in his locker and walked right out the front door of the building, waving at the secretary as he passed the front office. She waved back absently, assuming as most people did that Wade’s nonchalance meant he was allowed to be doing what he was doing. 

School was twenty blocks north of the city center, and home was another forty in the opposite direction. Wade went south, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walked and enjoying the way the crowds got bigger and the buildings got taller as he walked. It was like wandering so deep into a forest that the local wildlife didn’t recognize him as an outsider anymore. No one looked at him once, let alone twice. 

Peter’s questions about the shit talking he and Clint were doing during Art had brought back some old memories. He hadn’t thought of Ottawa or Al in years, though he found now that he could still picture her wrinkled forehead as she scowled in his general direction in the tiny classroom at the back of the school building where all the special-ed kids had to spend their days, regardless of age. 

Al was a couple years older than Wade, which felt like a lot to a six year old. She was his best friend, and spent a lot of time trying to surprise him into talking, then getting irritated and telling him what an idiot he was when he wouldn’t. He was still learning sign language back then, and she couldn’t see anything he did anyway. They were rarely able to actually communicate. 

Wade hadn’t spoken a single word while they lived in Ottawa. He hadn’t bothered after his mama died, and he didn’t pick it up again for over a year, long after when he could’ve told Al where to shove it when he finally found his words again.

These days, Wade found it difficult to shut the fuck up, as anyone who knew him well would agree. Even walking down the street alone, he couldn’t help commenting under his breath about the buildings and people he passed. Nobody looked at him funny, because again, nobody looked at him at all. 

He passed a building covered in scaffolding and doubled back, sildling into the alley next to it without anyone paying too much attention. A dumpster huddled at the back wall of the alley, near a set of metal poles that looked pretty well strapped down on the level above his head. 

Only one way to find out. 

The dumpster made more noise than Wade expected when he hoisted himself up onto it. It must’ve been emptied recently. From where he was standing now, the heavy looking poles were just out of arm’s reach. He leaned forward, bracing one hand on the brick wall to his right, and brushed them with his fingers. They felt solid. If he jumped and grabbed them, he’d know right away.

Wade jumped. 

He caught hold of the stack of poles, which wobbled under his weight with a dangerous metallic creaking, but didn’t spill down and crush him to death.

Flush with success, Wade hoisted himself up onto the scaffolding and, from there, climbed up and up and up, staying in between his building and the one next door so that no one noticed him.

Standing on ground level and looking up, all the buildings just looked tall. When something stretched that far away on a vertical axis, it was difficult to really know how high up it went. Wade really began to understand this at what he estimated was probably the tenth floor of scaffolding, plastic tarps flapping around him in the breeze that came in from the East River. He’d wandered aimlessly for a few hours before finding this building, and by now the sun was starting to dip behind the skyscrapers to his right. The construction crew, if they’d worked at all today, were gone now.

If he looked down, Wade knew he’d feel a swooping sense of vertigo and maybe nausea, so instead he kept climbing. He hadn’t even gone higher than the building next door, and you couldn’t feel above everything if there were still people going about their daily business over your head. 

Wade climbed the water tower in Dryden once, at about one in the morning while he was waiting for his dad to pass out so he could get into his room and go to sleep. Once he’d reached the top and looked down, the dizzying reality of his position had hit him and, unable to either enjoy his altitude or climb down, he’d sat shivering and tense next to the ladder until five am, when the sky started to lighten and he realized he couldn’t let anyone find out why he’d gotten stuck. 

He climbed all the way down the ladder with his eyes tightly shut and his heart in his throat, carefully feeling for each rung and moving one jerky limb at a time until his foot bumped into solid, grassy ground. When he told people at school the story the next day, he spent two hours on the tower and he smoked the whole time.

These days, he knew better than to look down, or think very hard about what he was doing. 

Once he was high enough that he could see the tops of the other buildings around him, Wade settled down on the scaffolding and pretended he wasn’t clutching at it a little as he watched the city buzz. Getting down was Future Wade’s problem.

\----

Peter walked home that day, wanting the extra time alone to think. Wade was always nice to him. Friendly and funny, and was it really so bad to keep being friends with him? 

It was, though. Wasn’t it? It was hypocritical and cruel to anyone he was friendly with who ended up getting beat up by Wade. Even if Peter couldn’t personally imagine Wade beating up anyone. And now he was just going in circles.

He was only a few blocks away from school, totally lost in thought, when someone called his name. 

“Peter! Hey, wait up!”

Peter looked over his shoulder and saw Pietro running toward him, with his twin sister, Wanda hurrying after them both, though she was still a block or so behind.

“You didn’t used to take this route home,” Pietro said when he skidded to a stop. Peter ignored the question implied in his words and changed the subject.

“Ever think about waiting for her?” he asked, watching Pietro impatiently wave his sister onward. “Not everyone’s powered by a dozen little hamsters on wheels.”

“She always catches up,” Pietro said dismissively. Sure enough, Wanda arrived a second later, huffing and irritated. 

“One of these days I’m going to trip you and then we’ll see who gets there first,” she warned. Pietro just laughed, and though Wanda gave Peter a funny look, she didn’t ask why he had gone two blocks out of his way in what was a clear attempt to use a different subway line. 

The three of them fell into step together in what quickly became an awkward silence. They had three blocks or so left until Pietro and Wanda turned off down 164th Street, and Peter knew it was up to him to say something to break the tension, loathe as he was to speak. Aunt May didn’t want him isolating himself, even if it felt like a really good idea, sometimes.

“I have your dad for art class this year, y’know,” Peter said eventually, adjusting the strap of his backpack. “You guys should tell him to give me an A.”

“You could tell him yourself, if you come to synagogue this weekend,” Wanda said, bumping shoulders with Peter and hooking their arms together. “We haven’t seen you since-- uh--”

“Yeah,” Peter said quickly, before she could mention the funeral. He cleared his throat and shrugged, trying to keep things light. “Although I don’t think it’ll work as well, coming from me.”

Pietro bounced on his heels and turned so he was walking backward in front of them. “Worth a try. Bring your auntie, too.”

“I’ll do my best,” Peter said, looking down at his feet. Aunt May had married into it, and now that Uncle Ben was-- gone, well. Neither of them had kept it up even though Peter felt obscurely that that was a mistake, even if he was struggling with dragging himself out of bed just for school every day. It’d been more than three months. He should be doing better than this by now. 

May still made him matzah ball soup when they both had a particularly bad day, though, so. That was something. 

They walked on, and Peter’s thoughts returned to Wade, almost with relief. It just seemed crazy to imagine him hurting someone on purpose. Peter had gotten a paper cut during art, and Wade had been concerned enough to take his hand and examine it, to see if he needed a bandaid.

“Hey guys,” Peter said, a block away from where their walks home diverged. Wanda kicked a rock at Pietro’s feet, and he nearly tripped trying to kick it back.

Wanda smirked at her brother. “What’s up, Peter?”

“Have you heard about that new guy, Wade Wilson?”

Wanda’s face darkened immediately, to Peter’s dismay.

“Is he giving you trouble, Peter? We can talk to our dad if you want. He’ll tell Dr. Xavier or Mr. Fury what’s going on--”

“No,” Peter interrupted, waving his free hand sharply. “No, he’s not... I was just gonna ask if you’d heard anything bad about him, but--”

“You mean aside from him picking on half our year?” Pietro asked, hopping backward from one foot to another, now. “He’s the next Flash Thompson, Pete.”

Peter sighed, his heart sinking to his stomach. “Yeah, I’ve heard that too.”

“If he hasn’t bugged you yet, just stay away from him,” Wanda advised as they reached the corner. She tugged Peter in by the elbow and kissed him on the cheek. “See you Saturday?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, rubbing his cheek where he knew she’d probably left a lipstick mark. He shoved Pietro’s shoulder when he stuck his tongue out, and stepped into the crosswalk. “I’ll see what I can do.”

They both called out goodbyes and set off down the avenue, and Peter shoved his hands in his pockets, skipping the subway entirely and using the rest of the walk home to burn off some of his increasingly dismal mood.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**12 September**

Wade usually liked to mind his own goddamn business. Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’, that’s what he believed. 

Not everyone agreed, though. Flash Thompson seemed to be one of those assholes who just had to shove his opinion places where nobody asked for it to go, and he wasn’t even gentleman enough to lube it up first.

“I heard all Canadians are pussies,” Flash said that morning, blocking Wade’s path to his locker. 

“Nah, broski, it’s that we  _ get _ pussy,” Wade said, trying to step around him. Flash stayed in his way, and Wade paused, tilting his head in thought. “Or maybe it’s that we like cats? I don’t really remember. You should google it.”

Flash was only slightly taller than Wade, who made up for it with a little more muscle mass, so he wasn’t too worried. He’d taken down bigger guys than Flash Thompson when he was fourteen. He flexed his fingers, imagining sinking his fist into Thompson’s smug face. He could tell it’d feel good.

“You’re a real fuckin’ loser, aren’t you?” Flash asked, switching gears quickly as he looked Wade up and down. “You get those jeans outta the Goodwill dumpster?”

“Oooh,  _ burn _ ,” Wade said, shaking his hand off, then turning it into a derisive wanking motion. “We havin’ fun yet, sweetheart? You gettin’ your motor goin’ with these half-assed insults?”

Flash scowled, and movement from the corner of Wade’s eye had his head turning in time to see Peter hovering nearby, watching. 

Flash had clearly spotted him as well. “Hey Puny Parker, I heard you and Scarface here are besties now. Be honest. Do you ever get used to how nasty his face--”

Wade’s fist was up and moving before he registered the rush of fury soaking through his body. It landed with a satisfying crack on Flash’s jaw. Flash stumbled back, shocked, but recovered quickly enough to throw himself at Wade and tackle him to the floor. They struggled and threw punches while the surrounding crowd of students shouted and jeered, though all Wade could hear was white noise. 

Wade took a clean hit to the side of his head and thrust his palm up blindly in response, savoring the grunt of pain and the snap in his wrist that suggested he'd been successful. He caught Flash's eye for a split second, and the bubbling rage he saw felt intimately familiar. A tremor shook through his shoulders and he didn't manage to block the next punch, the sideways jerk of his head breaking the connection and providing a sense of relief. 

It didn’t take long after that for a couple teachers to step in and separate them, and then they were off to the principal’s office, glaring daggers at each other through blackened eyes and bloody grimaces as they were hauled away. Now that the fight was over, Wade could focus enough to get a last glimpse of Peter before they turned the corner. He didn’t look happy.

\----

If Peter had really needed to see what Wade was like with his own two eyes, he was getting his opportunity. 

And maybe he had needed it. Despite his anger and concern about what he’d learned, Peter had been holding back on confronting Wade. Reserving judgement. And while he was no fan of Flash Thompson, brawling in the hallways wasn’t exactly a stellar character recommendation.

Peter watched Wade and Flash being dragged away by Mr. Murdock and Mrs. Richards, then took several steps back, turned, and saw the bathroom. 

Thank God. 

He shoved inside, stumbled into a stall, and sank down to the floor, his breath coming in sharp little gasps. He was trembling now, heart racing too fast-- why couldn’t he calm down he was going to die if he couldn’t why was he dying what was wrong with him that hewasfreakingoutthismuchabout--

A panic attack. 

Just remembering that he wasn’t actually dying allowed Peter to suck in a huge gulp of air. He’d talked about this with that shrink Aunt May made him see when he stopped sleeping after-- what happened to Uncle Ben. 

He closed his eyes, hid his face in his hands, and tried to take slow, deep breaths like she’d said. He couldn’t remember what else she’d suggested doing. He hadn’t freaked out like this in almost a month, and usually his aunt was nearby to help him through it. 

After an undetermined length of time, he finally realized he could do something about that. With numb fingers, he fumbled for his phone and got it unlocked, cracking one eye open long enough to dial Aunt May’s number and put it on speaker. She answered on the second ring.

“Is everything okay, sweetie?” she said instead of a greeting, her voice distant and tinny to Peter’s ears.

“Can you come pick me up?” he asked. He could hear the strain in his words. “I feel awful.”

May hesitated for barely a second before responding. “Of course I can. I’ll get there right away. Will you be in the nurse’s office?”

Peter shrugged, and after about thirty seconds, May said, “Peter? I can’t see if you nodded, honey.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Prob’ly.”

“Peter,” she said again, sounding more concerned. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Bathroom,” Peter said, remembering to take another deep breath. 

“What floor? What color are the tiles?”

“Second.” He opened his eyes and looked down at the floor. “They’re blue.”

“Good.” Peter could hear rustling sounds from her end of the line. It was comforting. “Are they little tiles or big ones? What color grout?”

“Uh.” Peter stared at the floor between his shoes. “Little ones. It’s off white. This floor is kinda dirty.”

May laughed, and Peter’s mouth quirked up in a quick mimicry of the emotion. His chest didn’t hurt quite so badly anymore, and he didn’t feel quite so certain that the world was ending, but he still felt weak and completely exhausted.

“I wanna go home,” he said, his voice barely audible. May tsked sympathetically through the speaker.

“I know, sweetie. I’ll be there soon.”

\---

Dr. Xavier was a pretty decent principal, by Wade’s standards. He didn’t comment on Wade’s face or insult him, or assume the fight was all his fault just because he was fucking new. 

Wade still had two weeks of Saturday school to contend with starting tomorrow, but that just meant he had an excuse to not be at home over the weekend. He’d take it.

Peter’s desk was empty during Spanish. Wade stared at it the whole time instead of paying any attention at all, wondering where he could’ve gone.

It was possible that Wade had made a mistake, getting into a fight in front of Peter. It was also possible that he cared a little more than he should about what his First Day Friend thought of him. 

Then again, it’d been a couple weeks since the first day of school. Peter was just his friend now. His smart, funny, super hot senior friend who understood all Wade’s pop culture references, even Robin Sparkles, and who Wade could occasionally even get to smile sometimes. That friend.

Or at least, he hoped they were friends.

When Peter wasn’t in art class either, Wade sat and stewed instead of blocking out his picture onto canvas like he was meant to be doing. He wished that he could just text and ask if Peter was okay, but he didn’t have his number, and it was pretty fucking unlikely that MJ or Harry would give it to him if he tracked them down.

That meant he had the whole weekend to think about Peter and what had happened after the fight, and whether he was okay. Maybe there was a family emergency or he wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he had some kind of school event he hadn’t mentioned. Maybe he was so fucking mad at Wade that skipping those classes seemed like a better idea than talking to him. Maybe he hated Wade now. Who could say? It was all equally as likely as anything else.

Wade spent his Saturday scrubbing graffiti off the walls in all the student bathrooms, and making friendly with the janitor. Mr. Lang was a pretty okay dude. School janitors usually were, and Wade made sure to be on his best behavior. He knew who signed the paperwork saying he’d done his task at the end of the detention, and if he played it right, by next month, he and Lang could be dealing poker during Saturday detentions instead of scrubbing toilets. 

It’d worked in Vancouver, and Wade tended to have a lot of Saturday detentions. It was a habit.

Sunday, Wade wandered around town until after dark, getting hopelessly lost, riding the subway when he was tired of walking, and generally making a nuisance of himself in bodegas and city parks. It was actually a pretty good day, or it would’ve been if he could stop himself from wondering where Peter lived, and whether he was okay. He tried again to convince himself that Peter wasn’t going to leave school early because of something Wade had done, but the look on his face had been... more emotion than he’d ever shown toward Wade before, and none of it good.

Caring so much seemed like a bad idea, but his brain refused to be distracted.

He didn’t see hide nor hair of Peter Monday morning either, and hurried into Spanish class much earlier than usual. Peter was there, and Wade felt a stupid swell of relief that soured when he realized that Peter was refusing to look at him.

“Peter?” He said, his voice low and uncertain as he slid into the next seat. He watched Peter focus intently on his phone and ignore Wade completely until the bell rang for class to start. A pit opened up in his stomach and he hunched his shoulders, any chance of him paying attention to the lesson sailing out the window.

Peter kept his head buried in his notebook, and brushed all the crumpled up notes Wade tossed to him onto the ground without reading them. 

The bell rang, and Wade was up and out of his seat before the sound had entirely faded away. Peter walked out ahead of him, and Wade rushed to catch up and kept pace as they followed the flow of traffic toward the lunch room.

“Hey, Petey-pie,” he said, in a too-cheerful tone. He watched Peter’s expression for any change, but his jaw was set, and his eyes didn’t flicker toward Wade at all. “How you doin’?”

“I didn’t know I was hanging out with a bully,” Peter said, his voice tight. Wade scowled even as his worst fears were confirmed and the tight feeling in his chest redoubled. Peter totally hated him now. 

“Aw, c’mon,” he tried anyway, gesturing vaguely down the hallway. “You were there. He totally started that! I wasn’t bullying  _ Flash Thompson _ .”

“Do you want me to list off the names of the six freshmen you went after this week, instead?” Peter snapped, finally looking at him. He looked angry and he looked defeated, which was somehow worse. Wade shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, avoiding Peter’s gaze, now. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“It’s not like that,” Wade said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Peter stopped, which meant Wade had to, too. 

They were in the way, and Wade was getting jostled by the crowd as it split around them and reformed on the other side, unbothered by the nasty feeling brewing in the pit of Wade’s stomach. Peter was getting knocked around too, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s it like? Go on and explain it to me. Did someone else beat those kids up?”

Eyes darting defensively around the hallway, Wade just shrugged. “No, I did-- I mean, it was definitely me. It’s just not. Like that. Y’know.”

Peter shook his head and clutched his books tighter. “I’m not really buying it, Wade,” he said. He looked ready to keep talking, but Wade wasn’t a fucking idiot, and he wasn’t gonna stand here and listen to somebody lecture him about things they didn’t understand. Wade  _ needed _ that money. He needed an income, and it wasn’t like those kids didn’t have the extra cash. He hadn’t  _ really  _ hurt anybody. He’d just roughed them up a little. No blood or anything.

Wade met Peter’s flinty expression and realized none of that was going to make a difference. It was always the same. Nothing he did was ever good enough. Everything was always his fault. Fuck him for trying to live. Fine.

“Whatever,” he snapped, and stormed off, away from the lunchroom. He didn’t  _ have _ to have someone to sit with. He could get into plenty of trouble on his own. In fact, no one would even notice if he was still in the building, in a school this big.

Fuck ‘em all, anyway.

\----

Wade went to an arcade. He didn’t exactly have money to blow on it, no matter what Peter thought he was doing with all that cash he lifted off the fucking freshies, but he could hang around. Absorb the atmosphere. Places like this were loud and distracting and sometimes there was a free play left on a machine or a few tickets sticking out of a slot. It calmed Wade down.

When he got home that night, his dad wasn’t around, which was a goddamn relief. After a whole afternoon spent watching other people play games, Wade was in the mood for some Call of Duty. He set it up on their shitty TV in the living room and got down to straight up murdering Nazis.

He got a few good hours in before he heard the slide of the key in the lock. His heart thudded and sank into his gut. He was up and moving in less than a second. 

The remote was on the arm of the couch, and he used it to turn off the TV, tossing it on his dad’s armchair and flipping off the light switch on the way out of the room. When they first moved in, Wade gave the layout of the living room a lot of thought, then put the TV where it could plug into its own outlet. The DVD player and the gaming system were on the light switch. That way, he could turn his stuff off fast, and his dad could sit down two seconds later and turn the tv right back on, none the wiser.

Wade was down the hallway and gently closing his bedroom door before his dad stepped into the apartment. He’d have no idea Wade was even home unless he checked on him. 

Out of sight, out of mind. That was another little phrase Wade liked to live by.

Just in case, Wade waited, one foot wedged against the door, and listened to his dad’s heavy footsteps. They hadn’t lived here long, but Wade already had a pretty good idea of how many steps it took to reach the hallway. It sounded like he’d gone into the kitchen. 

And now... footsteps again, but were they getting quieter or louder? It was difficult to tell over his heart pounding in his ears, but... yeah, that was the squeak of Tom’s armchair.

Wade rested his head against the doorframe and exhaled silently as he heard a tv ad blare suddenly from the living room. Out of sight, out of mind.

He took his foot away from the door, slid his shoes off, and eased himself up onto his dresser, careful not to make any noise. His room was pretty bare: just the dresser, a bed, and his school bag over in the corner, but he’d made sure his dresser was on the wall across from the window.

From there, he could see the buildings across the street, and he sat for a while, taking deep, lung filling breaths and letting them out slowly. 

The place across from his window had a garden of potted plants on their fire escape. Out of curiosity, Wade got down from the dresser and went to his window. It slid open noiselessly. He gave it an approving glance, then cautiously stuck his head out and looked around. The fire escape was two windows down. It’d be in the living room. Fucking of course it would, because the fucking builders didn’t give a shit if you died in your bedroom.

It wasn’t quite reachable from here, but if he was really careful, wore his grippiest shoes, and inched along the little ledge just below, he could maybe grab hold of the railing and lower himself down to the next floor without anyone in his apartment noticing.

He’d left those shoes in the front room like a fucking idiot yesterday, and he wasn’t about to risk a solid escape route on his shitty converse. It’d have to wait for another day. 

He knelt at the window, arms crossed on the ledge with his chin propped up on top, and looked down at the street below. They were on the fifth floor, which meant jumping was out of the question unless he wanted a broken leg. They’d be moving after that for sure.

His thoughts turned to his school bag, tossed carelessly in the corner by the closet, and from there, to Peter. 

He needed to come up with some way of explaining himself. Peter was obviously a goody-two-shoes, which, really, Wade wasn’t even surprised by. He’d picked him out partially for that reason. He was a good guy. He wasn’t gonna like Wade stealing or fighting, or stealing and fighting, or whatever.

And Wade wasn’t about to stop. He needed that money. And he couldn’t just get a job. First of all, he didn’t have a work permit, and he was underage. Any job he did get would be under the table, and if his dad found out... well. Everyone knew what rent was like in New York City. Wade couldn’t afford to rent a shitty parking space, let alone his bedroom. He’d end up with three jobs to just keep from getting tossed out on the fucking street.

And his dad would find out. Wade had no doubt about that.

So the job was out. Which meant Wade’s only source of income was hassling weenies with designer shoes. Peter wasn’t likely to understand, though Wade briefly entertained a fantasy where he explained the situation and Peter fell all over himself to apologize for ever doubting Wade, then gave him his blessing. And his phone number.

He wondered if he could still get Peter’s number now, without the explanation. Maybe if he ‘stopped’. 

He couldn’t really, but if Peter  _ thought  _ he’d given it up, well... that might be good enough.

Wade unlocked his phone and stared at the nearly empty contacts list. Maybe he could just find Peter on snapchat or facebook. Maybe they could talk there and he could sway Peter with memes. Wade was kind of a meme god. It could work.

A frustratingly fruitless twenty minutes of search yielded nothing. Maybe Peter had all his shit on privacy lockdown. Maybe he was a noob without any social media presence at all. Maybe he’d already found Wade and pre-blocked him.

That last thought was depressing enough that Wade tossed his phone on his bed and picked up his backpack, looking for a distraction. The streetlamp just outside his window kept his room permanently half-lit, so Wade didn’t even have to turn on the light.

Out of sight, out of mind.

\----

**17 September**

Peter didn’t speak to him at all the next day. Wade knew better than to try to talk to him again after Spanish, and Peter didn’t so much as look in his direction when he got his lunch and left the cafeteria to sit alone on the stairs near the science classrooms.

English was right after lunch, and Wade slouched at the back of the class, backpack on his little desk as he paid absolutely no attention. Maybe he wouldn’t mind so much if they left New York soon. They’d already been here more than a month. Generally speaking, his dad would be looking around for somewhere new in the next sixty days, and--

“Mr. Wilson, are you with us?”

Wade looked up. The teacher was frowning and tapping his chalk against his palm.

“Huh?” he said intelligently. Mr. Summers all but rolled his eyes. Wade could feel himself bristling. 

“I asked you what stood out to you most about the chapters you were  _ supposed _ to read last night from The Crucible. Do you have an answer for me, Mr. Wilson?”

From his tone, Wade could tell that Mr. Summers thought he most definitely didn’t. He sneered to himself, mentally flipping through all the nasty responses he could give.

In the end, it wasn’t worth the fucking effort, so Wade slumped further down in his seat and said, “I thought the part where they were piling stones on that Corey guy to crush him and make him fess up was pretty fucked up.”

“Language, Mr. Wilson,” said Mr. Summers, but his tone wasn’t as sharp as before, and he didn’t press the issue when Wade just shrugged. He seemed surprised, in fact. Like Wade didn’t know how to fucking read. What a douchebag. “But yes, can anyone else talk about Giles Corey’s request for ‘more weight’ in terms of theme? Miss Lewis?”

Wade stopped listening again, but his thoughts lingered on the book at the bottom of his bag, for lack of anything less depressing to think about. He wasn’t a good, honest guy like Corey whatever, but he’d been able to imagine pretty well last night, what it must’ve felt like to lay there while they piled stone after stone onto his chest. Sometimes it felt like that tight, compressed feeling never went away.

It’d be a relief if his lungs finally did collapse.


	4. Chapter 4

**October 3rd**

In the two weeks he spent avoiding Wade, Peter felt like the biggest asshole on earth. 

Though it was true that he had a perfectly valid reason for doing it, and though it was also true that Wade had shown exactly zero remorse or even accepted accountability for beating up people that hadn’t done a single thing to him, Peter still felt like  _ he _ was the one being unfair. 

It didn’t stop him, because he was, as Bruce sometimes said, a stubborn sonofabitch, and that panic attack had  _ sucked _ , but it did make him feel like complete crap, avoiding eye contact and walking away when Wade tried to strike up conversation. 

His resolve was tested on Thursday, when Wade sat down next to him in Spanish. Peter knew from experience that this meant he was going to be followed to lunch again, and the thought of ignoring Wade while he slunk away to eat alone made Peter wince. He wished Wade would stop looking like a kicked puppy every time they interacted.

“Hey Pete,” Wade said as they were packing their books away after the bell rang. He sounded unusually nervous. “I wanna-- Can I just talk to ya real quick? Please?”

Wade hadn’t tried this before, and Peter had to admit he was curious. 

“Fine,” he said as he stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder. Wade trailed him out of the classroom and into the hall, where they stopped out of the way of foot traffic, leaning against a set of lockers. “You have two minutes.”

“I’m gonna stop,” Wade said, eyes darting away from Peter’s face to look over his shoulder, then back again. Peter blinked.

“Stop what?” he asked, uncertain. It couldn’t be as simple as this, could it?

“M’gonna stop beatin’ people up,” Wade muttered, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He wasn’t looking at Peter at all, but he didn’t need to, not with news like this. Peter’s eyes widened and he beamed, despite himself.

“Seriously?”

Wade shrugged, then nodded, then shrugged again. “Yeah,” he said. He glanced up at Peter, caught sight of his wide smile, and looked quickly back down at his feet, red-cheeked. “You were right, they didn't do nothin’ to me. S’not fair.”

“Just like that?” Peter asked, biting down on his smile to try to bolster his attempt at skepticism. “It's that easy? I should've asked Flash to stop picking on me years ago.”

Wade's eyes darted up to Peter's and finally held, a scowl darkening his expression. “I'll take care of him, Petey--”

“No, nope, nuh uh,” Peter said, shoving gently at Wade’s shoulder and shaking his head emphatically. “Go back to the nonviolent thing. We were doing so well a second ago.”

“Didn't say I was gonna let assholes get away with their bullshit,” Wade grumbled, swaying back slightly as Peter pushed at him, despite it being quite obvious that he could’ve easily held his ground. “I just won't pick on anyone who doesn't deserve it anymore.”

Peter huffed out a huge, dramatic sigh, then grinned at Wade again. This was honestly the best news he’d gotten in a long time. Wade was going to stop hurting people, just because Peter had asked, and because he’d realized the error of his ways. Wow. That was really-- just, wow. 

He turned and started walking down the nearly empty hallway. “That's as good as I'm gonna get for now, isn't it?”

Wade followed Peter in the direction of the lunchroom. “Yeah. Can I sit with you at lunch again?”

“Yeah,” Peter replied, slowing down so he could catch up. “Harry missed you, you know.”

Wade snorted. “Now I know you’re fulla shit.

They’d taken so long in the hallway that lunch line was mostly empty and all the good food had been picked over. Peter got a tray anyway and snagged the last piece of pizza, the crust burnt and curled in on itself. “No, I really think he did,” he said, shrugging. “I think he likes how polite and well mannered you make him look by comparison.” 

“That’s the beauty of a guy like me,” Wade agreed with a sage nod. “I’m a great wingman coz I lower the bar like  _ whoa _ .”

“I don’t know about that.” Peter glanced sideways at Wade and his lack of tray. “Not eating?”

Wade shrugged and stared blankly at the mostly empty food trays. “Nah, not today. Not hungry.”

“Uh huh,” Peter said, thinking skeptically of the overfull trays of food Wade usually consumed at lunchtime. “ _ You _ aren’t hungry. Okay, buddy.” He grabbed an extra bag of chips and a banana and put them on his tray as well, and when they reached the table, set them down in front of Wade without comment. He didn’t know what the weird desire to skip lunch was all about, but whatever nonsense Wade had gotten into his head likely wouldn’t stand up to temptation. 

Sure enough, Wade cast a strange look in his direction, but picked up the banana anyway and peeled it, also without comment.

“I see our token Canadian is back,” Harry said, his patrician tones a little more exaggerated than usual, like he did when he wanted to assert his superiority over someone. Peter rolled his eyes. It was entirely possible that Wade had never even heard Harry's normal voice. 

“Yeah, he’s turning over a new leaf,” Peter said, grinning again at Wade, who refused to lift his head and instead darted tiny glances up at Peter occasionally while he ate his chips. Silence met his announcement, and Peter turned to MJ and Harry to see them looking with surprise at him, not Wade. “What?”

“Uh,” Harry said. MJ cut in neatly.

“Nothing, tiger,” she said, smiling back. “It’s just great news. We’re glad you’re so happy about it.”

“Of course I am,” Peter said, but he knew what she meant. His mood had been-- low, to say the least, since the school year started. Watching your uncle get-- watching him die in front of you did that to a person. But if there was anything that Ben would’ve wanted Peter to take happiness from, it was this. He’d always talked about  _ tikkun olam, _ and he’d really believed in non-violence and changing the world with words and common sense, and now Wade had decided to be better. Because of Peter’s words.

His smile had wavered, but he forced it back into place, looked at Wade, and said, “Wade’s gonna be great. No more bullying, right?”

Wade nodded, still looking at the half banana left in front of him, and agreed. “Right.”

\---

Wade hadn’t expected Peter to be  _ this _ happy about him not shoving around a few fourteen year olds. He’d  _ never _ seen Peter look like this, not in the entire month they’d known each other, and Wade had been trying his damndest to make Peter smile. 

He could tell something had happened there, judging by how carefully Peter’s friends watched him sometimes, and by how troubled Peter always looked when he was off his guard. And by how fucking impossible it was to get more than half a grin out of him, no matter how hilarious Wade was. 

But Peter had actually  _ lit up  _ when Wade promised not to be a bully anymore, and it lasted almost all the way through lunch. He looked like a fucking angel when he smiled like that, eyes bright and fully invested, just for a moment, in being thrilled about a lie.

Wade spent the last half of the day seriously reconsidering whether he  _ actually  _ needed to keep stealing from freshmen. Maybe he could stop for real? 

But without that money, he’d go back to having to pick at the food Tom left in the house, and Tom always noticed when Wade ate something he’d been saving for himself. The last thing Wade ever wanted was for his dad to notice him. 

The other option was to go out into the city and mug people, and that scared Wade more than he wanted to admit. Getting caught at school meant they might give him detentions and make him give whatever he’d taken back. And wealthy freshman kids didn’t tend to tattle anyway. 

Wandering around the neighborhood he lived in alone at night all the time meant Wade had already been mugged several times, and those guys had fucking knives. Sometimes even guns. Wade didn’t want to kill anyone. 

Well. Maybe Flash Thompson, or his dad, but they deserved it.

Instead of going to chemistry that afternoon, Wade wandered up to the top floor of the school building, vaguely wondering about a way to get onto the roof. He doubted it’d be easily accessible to students, but he needed to think. It was worth a try.

He found a hallway on the top floor that looked generally unused, just past the big elevator for wheelchairs, and went that way. 

Sure enough, there was a metal door, slightly ajar, and Wade peered through the gap before easing it open and going inside. Past that door, he found a ladder, which he obviously climbed, and then a two foot tall door, also ajar, which took a little effort to squeeze through. 

To be totally honest, at this point, Wade was fucking delighted by all the dust and weirdness. He absolutely wasn’t supposed to be up here, which made it the best thing he’d uncovered in New York City so far. 

Past the tiny door, Wade found a tiny old spiral staircase, with a trap door at the top. Fuck, yeah. At the top of the stairs, he pushed the trap door up and poked his head out into open air. 

“Oh hey, it’s the new kid.”

Wade stiffened and looked around, relaxing when he spotted a teenage girl with a cigarette instead of some kind of school admin.

“Oh hey it’s... young Zazie Beetz,” Wade said, unable to think of a better comeback. He climbed up onto the platform she was sitting on and looked around, fascinated. “Where are we?” 

“It’s Neena,” the girl corrected. “And we’re on the clocktower. How’d you get up here?”

“Same way you did: the door. And the ladder and the staircase and, and, and.” Wade stepped up to the edge of their platform and looked down, satisfied with the way his stomach twisted at the height. 

“Just don’t get us caught,” she said, and when he looked back at her, she had her eyebrows raised significantly. He stepped back from the edge and sat down, crossing his legs.

“So,  _ Neena _ ,” he said, leaning back on his hands and then giving up and falling onto his back instead. “Come here often?”

Neena laughed and flicked the ash from her cigarette at him. “Go fuck yourself, new kid.”

“It’s Wade,” Wade said, folding his hands under his head and staring up at the roof of the clock tower above them. The evenly spaced pillars at all sides provided a sense of safety without fully enclosing them, and Wade approved deeply. “Go fuck yourself, Wade.”

They fell into a brief and unexpectedly comfortable silence, and Wade closed his eyes as his thoughts cycled back around to the whole situation with Peter. 

“How do you make decisions?” he asked out loud. “Tough decisions.”

Wade looked up after there was no response for more than fifteen seconds, to see Neena looking thoughtful. She took another drag of her cigarette and finally answered, “I go with my gut. And if my gut isn’t sure, I flip a coin.”

That wasn’t helpful. “New question: how do you make money without a job?”

Neena rolled her eyes. “I’m fifteen. I don’t have to make money.”

Wade leaned up on his arms to get a better look at her. “What if you wanna do something and you have to have money to do it?”

“I made friends with some rich kids freshman year,” she said, shrugging. “I’m set til we graduate.”

“Shit, that’s such a good idea,” Wade hissed to himself. “I’ve just been punchin’ them.”

“Long term, my way works better,” Neena replied, looking satisfied. “But then, you can’t dress like a--” She gestured at him with the lit end of her cigarette. ”You know. Late nineties crack addict.”

Wade looked down at his clothes. “This is just what people dress like in Canada,” he lied.

“Sure they do,” she laughed again, sounding genuinely amused. “Good luck with that.”

Wade laid back down and frowned at the ceiling. “Gotta spend money to make money, huh?”

“Yeeep,” Neena agreed, and they fell silent again.

Wade let his thoughts chase themselves in circles, never quite coming to a conclusion, and didn’t realize how much time had passed until a bell rang somewhere below them and Neena stood up and brushed her jeans off. “School’s over,” she said, heading for the trap door. “You coming?”

“How long til I’m trapped up here all night?” Wade asked, closing his eyes again.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s clubs and stuff after school. Five?”

“I’ll risk it,” he said, and lifted one hand in a wave. “Bye, new bestie.”

Neena laughed again, softer this time. “Whatever you say, new kid.”

\---

**4 October**

Wade was down to his last five dollars by the next afternoon. He wished he had waited to talk to Peter til Monday. By Monday, he would’ve had time to go harass that one blonde kid that was always good for at least thirty bucks, and who just handed it over by this point. And then Wade could’ve been more careful with his money instead of buying lunch every goddamn day. School lunch was definitely an inefficient use of his cash. 

It made that whole internal debate kind of a moot point. He’d have to keep doing it. It was that or starve.

The only good thing about Fridays was that Tom tended to drink himself into a stupor early in the afternoon. But until then, Wade had to find something to do.

“What’re you doin’ after school?” he asked Peter, during art class. Peter was focused on editing a photo on his laptop, and squinted at one corner of it, disgruntled.

“Walking home from school,” he said, clearly not giving it much thought. Wade pushed his paint palette out of the way and propped his chin up in his hand, watching Peter work. 

“Wanna hang out?” he asked, not bothering to mask his hopefulness. “You can show me around the city. It’ll be fun.”

“Are you claiming you haven’t explored the city yet?” Peter asked, finally glancing up at Wade. He had that little half smile that was usually the best Wade could pull out of him, so he grinned back.

“Not with a  _ real _ New Yorker,” he said, imbuing his words with more excitement than was strictly necessary. “You gotta show me all the stuff only the  _ locals _ know about.”

Peter scoffed. “Whatever. That’s dumb.” He looked at Wade, whose expression hadn’t changed even a little, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, fine, we’ll hang out.”

“Yesss,” Wade cheered, pumping the air with his fist. Mr. Lehnsherr cleared his throat, and Wade ducked his head and picked up his paint brush again. “Yaaay,” he said in a bright undertone, and Peter huffed a short laugh, eyes already fixed on his laptop again. Win.

\---

True to his word, Wade was hovering next to Peter’s locker when he arrived there after their last class, bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking eager. To tell the truth, Peter thought it was kind of nice, having someone around that was always so happy to see him.

“Hey, Pete,” Wade said with a wide smile. Peter offered a small smile in return, and Wade’s grin only grew. “Ready to go? Is there gonna be a tour bus? I wanna get a hat with the statue of liberty on it. Like, a foam replica on my head that shakes her little torch thingy at people while I walk. Is that a thing that exists? It’s gotta be, right?”

Peter squinted at him. “Don’t embarrass me in public, Wade. You can buy crap like that on your own time.”

As he spoke, Peter emptied everything out of his backpack except the absolute essentials. He didn’t want to be dragging half his textbooks around town if they’d be doing a lot of walking.

“Would the other  _ real _ New Yorkers judge you if they knew you were hangin’ out with a tourist?” Wade asked, his voice low and confidential. He didn’t even have a bag with him. Peter wondered vaguely how he was planning to get his homework done over the weekend.

“I live in Queens,” Peter replied. “And you’re not a tourist if you live here. You, personally? You’re just a schmuck. But I’d judge myself anyway, and you. And that’s enough.”

Wade grinned again. “Ouch, Petey-pie. That hurt me in my soft places.”

“Do you have a lot of soft places?”

“Not when you’re around. Wink wink.”

Peter made a face, leading the way to the exit. “Gross, Wade. Don’t say ‘wink’ out loud.”

“Say no more, say no more,” Wade agreed, and Peter bit down on a smile. It was best not to encourage him, however strong the urge was to ask if Wade was insinuating something, just to continue the reference. 

Once they were on the sidewalk outside school, Peter hesitated before deciding to just head in the direction of his usual subway stop. He wasn’t sure if Wade actually wanted some kind of tour, or if it had just been a pretense to get Peter to hang out with him beyond their two shared classes and lunch.

Either way, he knew the area around the school and his house best, and maybe Wade would be satisfied with a few token nods to the city. 

“So, uh, that’s a bagel shop,” Peter said, gesturing to a shop across the street from where they were walking. “Bagels are things that you eat.”

“Oooooh,” Wade said obligingly. Peter’s mouth turned up at the edges, but he kept his otherwise professional tour-guiding countenance intact. 

“And... that’s a cab,” Peter continued, pointing this time to a yellow taxi as it drove past. Wade ‘ahhh’ed and nodded along, pretending to snap a picture with his phone. Or at least, Peter hoped he was pretending. “Uh, yeah. If you look to your right in a second, you’ll see some really tall buildings.” 

As he spoke, they reached an intersection, and Wade obligingly looked right. The city stretched out along the receding block, as tall as promised in both directions.

“Pretty,” he said, pleased. Peter rolled his eyes and tugged him forward by his arm, out of the way of foot traffic. 

“Anyway,” he said, dragging Wade across the street as well when the light went green, since he seemed inclined to hesitate. “Coffees cost like five dollars each and pizza costs ninety nine cents if you go to the right place, so we’re getting dollar pizza.”

“I love dollar pizza,” Wade said, perking up. “Is that a real thing? How  _ much _ pizza do I get for a dollar?”

“Just a slice, but they’re pretty big,” Peter replied, pulling open the door to the pizzeria and gesturing Wade inside. This shop was his favorite, and conveniently only two blocks away from school.

Peter paid for four slices, ignoring the complex, conflicted expression on Wade’s face that suggested he had something to say about that. It was only two dollars. He stacked the slices two high and handed Wade half before they left the shop.

“Now, you fold it and eat it,” he said, demonstrating with his own pizza slices. Wade folded them as instructed and took such a large bite that Peter stared. 

“Wha’?” Wade asked with his mouth full. “M’a gro’n boy.” Once he’d finished chewing and swallowing, he added, “Thanks, Petey Pie!”

Wade finished his pizza so quickly that Peter was almost tempted to go back and get them both more. He would have too, if not for the memory of that look on Wade’s face. He didn’t know  _ what _ it had meant, but he didn’t want to spoil their afternoon if it turned out to be the beginning of an argument about Wade’s pride.

Instead, Peter led them through the park, which was really more of a skinny trail of green space cut into the surrounding streets, with a bench scattered here and there. That of course, in addition to the occasional mystifying hard plastic exercise stations, complete with equally oblique signage explaining how it all worked, with pictures.

Wade took a running leap at a set of bars and threw himself at them, flipping upside down through sheer momentum. His iron grip was the only thing that kept him from crashing into the dirt below. Peter didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes.

“I’m an acrobat!” Wade screeched, dangling upside down by his knees, fingers brushing the ground. Peter laughed without quite deciding to, and pulled himself gracefully up onto the set of bars next to Wade. He sat balanced on them, watching Wade twist and flail around below, and smirked. 

“You’re a hot mess,” he observed. Wade let go of the bar and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“The hottest,” he agreed. “Where’re we goin’, anyway? The Empire State building? The Space Needle? Grand Central Station?”

“I think the Space Needle’s in Seattle or something,” Peter said, his forehead furrowed. Wade straightened up and brushed some dirt off his jacket. 

“Let’s go to the White House, then,” he suggested, and Peter could see Wade’s sly expression perfectly well, in case he thought he was fooling anybody. “Or... where’s the Mall of America? That’s gotta be here, right?”

“Those are in Washington, DC and the midwest, somewhere.” Peter rolled his eyes and let himself fall backward off the bar, rolling in the air to land on his feet and enjoy Wade’s open-mouthed stare. He’d played on exercise equipment in parks just like this one a lot as a kid. “We’re going to the library.”

Wade stopped looking impressed and groaned. “Noooo, no, c’mon, Petey! It’s Friday! We ain’t going to a library.”

“It’s a really nice library?” Peter tried, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking backward in the right direction. “Big fancy statues of lions and marble staircases and... you know...”

“Books and weird smells and people shushing you ‘cause you accidentally knocked a section of encyclopedias on your foot after accidentally breaking a shelf on accident,” Wade finished, hunching his shoulders and scowling. Peter winced. 

“Okay, I guess we’re vetoing the library,” he said, suddenly imagining in vivid detail the lifetime ban he’d end up stuck with if he managed to convince Wade to come inside with him. He stopped walking and frowned around the park. “Which means... we’re going this way instead.”

He pointed at another footpath that led out of the park in a different direction, and Wade set off toward it with a bounce in his step. Peter followed, marvelling at how quickly Wade could go from over-excited to grumpy to perfectly cheerful again. Peter had mood swings too, but they were usually more along the lines of sad, pissed off, and then sad again. Cheerful would be a nice change. 

“Soooo, where’re we goin’ now?” Wade asked as they walked. “Better not be a museum or something, Petey. Don’t try to trick me into learning on my time off.”

Peter scowled at a tree and hunched his shoulders a little, though he refused to give Wade the satisfaction of changing direction or stopping. He didn’t have to know he’d been right. “What do you wanna do, then, Mr. Cool Guy?” he asked, sulking.

“I wanna... do something weird and interesting,” Wade decided, as vague as possible. “And I  _ don’t  _ wanna learn anything.”

Peter rolled his eyes expansively. “Fine,” he said, and made a right when they reached the next block. They walked for a few seconds in silence before Peter’s blithe lack of concern about Wade’s fidgeting and impatient glances finally caused him to speak up.

“Where’re we going?” Wade demanded, turning to face Peter, so that he was doing an odd sideways hop as Peter strolled along next to him, refusing to react. “C’mon, Petey, you gotta tell me. We’re not about to turn a corner and we’ll be back at school and you’ll be all like, ‘we should join the mathletes because that’s the raddest thing I can think of’, right?”

“You know what? Now I’m not telling you where we’re going,” Peter said, putting out a hand and shoving him right in the center of his chest. Wade stumbled and nearly tripped over his feet, but recovered impressively and shoved Peter back. It still counted as a win in Peter’s book, since he also started walking face forward again. “And who says ‘rad’?”

“You do,” Wade said, grinning. “Because you’r _ e laaaaame. _ ”

“Oh, and you’re so cool?

“Pfft, yeah, obvs. I’m cooler than cool. I’m  _ ice cold. _ ”

Peter rolled his eyes again, but this time, he couldn’t help himself. “Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright, alright--” he responded, and he barely finished the second word before Wade was howling with laughter. One or two people actually looked at them, though Peter’s sheepish, pleased smile remained firmly in place.

“I was wrong, you’re  _ hilarious _ ,” Wade said, still snickering. Then he lifted his arms, and to Peter’s horror, started twerking right there on the sidewalk. Twerking and singing. “Shake it-- shake-- shake it-- shake it like a Polaroid picture -- shake it--”

“Yeah, we get it,” Peter exclaimed over Wade’s continued singing, and shoved him again. “I cannot believe I agreed to be seen in public with you, stop it!”

Wade stopped a few seconds after Peter asked, as though to make it clear he was only doing it because  _ he _ wanted to, and Peter dragged him into the next alley, partly to get him out of sight, and partly because they could get to where they were going from here. 

It said something, that this wasn’t even the strangest thing Wade had done since Peter met him. 

“You’re the worst,” Peter informed Wade, coming to a stop under a fire escape. The ladder was up, and he was debating the easiest way to get it down so they could climb up. 

“So I’ve been told,” Wade said, sounding perfectly smug. He followed Peter’s gaze and narrowed his eyes. “We goin’ up?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, wondering how stupid he’d feel if he jumped to grab the ladder and missed. Before he could decide to find out, Wade leapt straight up in the air, scrabbled for the metal rung, and missed, staggering into the wall as he landed. 

Peter actually grinned, then bent his knees slightly and leapt himself, with the feeling that he couldn’t do a worse job than  _ that _ , at least.

“I’m just gonna pick you up and throw you at it,” Wade decided, after two more tries each. Peter’s last attempt at least had him brushing the metal rung with his fingers, though he hadn’t managed to actually hang on. 

“I’m stating for the record that I’m against this idea,” Peter said, though he did stop to give Wade a considering once over. “Just boost me up, don’t throw me,” he decided.

Wade laced his fingers together dutifully, and Peter stepped onto them, his opposite hand bracing on Wade’s shoulder. Like that, he was able to stand up and even lean one thigh against the same shoulder, while trying to catch his balance well enough to grab the ladder. Wade was surprisingly strong and didn’t stumble at all, though he talked, which was actually worse.

“Didn’t expect to get so up close and personal with you before the third date,” he said, and when Peter looked down, Wade seemed to be speaking directly to his zipper. Peter smacked him on the top of the head. 

“Stop that! I thought it went without saying, but this isn’t a date,” he pointed out. His tone wanted it to be a joke, but he was also aware that his face was bright red. Instead of allowing the conversation to continue, Peter grabbed hold of the ladder and pulled, watching it slide down once it’d slipped its latch. “There.”

Without waiting, Peter climbed off Wade and onto the ladder, leaving him to follow. 

“Nah, this isn’t a date,” Wade agreed, and Peter heard the clank of him climbing the rungs just below. “I woulda grabbed your ass by now if it was a date.”

Peter’s eyes widened, and he climbed off the ladder and onto the platform with haste. “Do  _ not _ grab my ass!” he said, but Wade was already laughing again. 

“I promise,” he said, climbing up and following Peter up the first set of stairs. “I’ll warn ya first, how’s that?”

“No grabbing my ass at all,” Peter said, turning and pointing a stern finger at him. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Wade said, his grin still wide and shameless. “Anything you say, boss.”

They made it to the roof without further incident, and Peter set off walking, weaving between the HVAC units and vents toward the next building over. 

“This whole block is a bunch of townhouses and stores,” he explained as they hopped across a narrow gap between two buildings. A patio set and a few benches were scattered around near the roof access on their current building. “There’s one toward the other end that’s really interesting.”

“I bet they got like... a telescope or something,” Wade teased. Peter stuck his tongue out as they crossed onto a pitched roof and had to crouch slightly to climb across.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s still light out,” he said.

They reached the right roof, and Peter didn’t even have to say, to his pleasure. 

“Biiiirbs,” Wade declared, making a beeline for the closest coop. One of the pigeons cooed at him. “Look at that one! Do you--” He looked up from the birds for a moment to stare at Peter with ill-disguised fascination. “Do New Yorkers eat pigeons?”

“What?” Peter stepped closer, face scrunched up in disgust. “No! Whoever lives here keeps them as pets.”

“What, to deliver mail or something?” Wade asked, working his finger into a hole in the grating to try to harass one of them. The bird edged away. “Like owl post for urban muggles?”

“I don’t think so,” Peter said, though he wasn’t totally sure. “I think they just keep them. They’re trained. Maybe they race them or something.”

“Weird,” Wade said, crouching in front of the coop to stare at the birds. 

“That’s what you asked for,” Peter replied with a shrug. Wade glanced back at him, grinning.

“I did, huh? Nice.”

Peter hopped up to sit on a locked storage container and watched Wade commune with the birds for a few minutes. When he started cooing at them and visibly agitated one or two with his pigeon impression, Peter pulled his knees up to his chest and hid his smile against them while he checked his texts.

“I like it up here,” Wade said later, when the sun had dipped low on the horizon and Peter was just thinking he should probably head home soon. Wade had been convinced to leave the birds alone, and they were sitting on the edge of the roof instead, feet kicking against the brick facade of the building below as the street lights slowly flickered to life.

“Yeah, me too,” Peter agreed. “Just-- if you come here by yourself, don’t break anything, or the guy who owns the pigeons is gonna be pissed and then neither of us can come back.”

“Yessir,” Wade said, and flopped back onto his elbows. “I’ll be good, Petey, don’t worry.”

Peter yawned. “Thanks.” They sat there for a few more minutes in a silence broken only by Wade’s quiet, tuneless humming, then Peter finally spoke up. “I’m gonna head home. It’s almost seven; my aunt’s gonna be annoyed if I’m not back in time for dinner.” 

Wade went fully silent this time, and Peter wondered if he’d said something wrong. Then: “Want me to walk you back?”

“It’s not really that far,” Peter shrugged. “The subway’s only a block from here, and I live a couple blocks away on the other end.”

Wade looked oddly shifty. Peter couldn’t account for it. “Yeah but... New York’s dangerous at night, isn’t it?”

Peter pressed his lips together tightly, remembering with a sudden, heart pounding clarity that yes, it was. So dangerous that someone could just shoot you in the street for trying to be a good person. Guilt followed just as suddenly when he realized that having to remember meant that he’d forgotten for a few hours that Uncle Ben had been murdered and that it was  _ his _ fault. 

And now he was out after dark again, and Aunt May would worry, and Wade was offering to walk him  _ home, _ and he wasn’t even from around here, and he’d been mugged  _ three times _ already at  _ least _ , he’d told Peter that before, and what if he got hurt on his way home from Peter’s house because Peter had agreed to let him walk so far out of his way, and--

“Hey, uh, Petey?” Wade asked, sitting up and facing Peter now, frowning. “You okay?” 

“I have to get home,” Peter said. He could hear that his voice sounded odd, and Wade’s face confirmed it. “I just promised my aunt I’d be home in time for dinner, and I have to go home now.”

“Yeah, no, totally,” Wade agreed, reaching out a tentative hand and resting it on Peter’s shoulder. ”But you just seem a little, uh--”

“I’m fine,” Peter said, feeling like he might cry or pass out. He clambered to his feet before he could do either in front of Wade, made sure he had his phone, and hurried toward the next roof over. “This was fun. I’ll see you at school on Monday, okay?”

Wade hurried after Peter, jumping over the gaps between roofs without pause to keep up with Peter’s long strides. “Well, wait, lemme just walk you home so I know you’re o--”

“I can get home by myself, just leave me alone,” Peter snapped. He didn’t realize Wade had stopped following him until he reached the fire escape and turned onto the stairs, only to see Wade standing still ten feet back, his face another complex blend of emotions that Peter couldn’t hope to understand right now. He couldn’t even try. Instead, he went down the stairs, slid down the ladder, and hurried home, keeping his head down and ignoring the sound of someone calling his name behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**4 October**

Barely a single weekend had passed since Wade met Peter without him being furious with Wade about something. At least before, Wade knew what it was, and that he kinda deserved it. This time, he had no clue what he’d done wrong. 

He tried to chase Peter down and apologize anyway, but he was fast when he wanted to be, and Wade couldn’t keep up with him. 

He went home instead, climbed the fire escape, and edged along the tiny ledge to his bedroom window, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with whether or not Tom was around. The gross, uncertain feeling in his chest wouldn’t go away. He’d thought they were having a great time. Peter hadn’t even been bothered when Wade had flirted and joked about dating, not like a straight boy might. Wade had been carrying some fucking  _ hope _ around with him for the couple hours they spent on that roof. 

Maybe it’d been a delayed reaction? Maybe Peter had been thinking about what Wade said, and then when Wade offered to walk him home, he realized what it meant? Maybe he’d just remembered he didn’t like Wade at all. Maybe Wade had said something else stupid without realizing and pissed him off.

Who fucking knew. 

Saturday and Sunday were more dismal days spent avoiding home and avoiding his thoughts. On Sunday, Wade walked southwest toward Brooklyn, until everything around him was unfamiliar and he didn’t know how to find his way home. He found Luna Park at Coney Island, but obviously he had no money to do anything cool, since he’d given up his only source of income like a patsy for someone who didn’t even want him around. 

He found a dumb looking kid around his age standing in line to get a pretzel and flashing way too much cash while he fished around in his wallet. 

Fuck this and fuck everything. Peter, too. Wade hadn’t even eaten yesterday. He was fucking starving.

He fell into step behind the dumb kid, watching him eat his pretzel as he wandered down the thoroughfare. If Wade’s resolve had wavered at all, it solidified when the fucking kid dumped the last third of his pretzel in the trash as he passed, turning his steps toward the rides.

It must be nice to just casually buy fun food and throw half of it in the  _ fucking garbage _ . Wade wanted to strangle the guy. He wanted to shove his face in the trash can and force him to finish his pretzel and whatever other food scraps were rotting in there. Maybe a cigarette butt, too. 

Instead, he caught up, grabbed the guy by his arm, and walked him behind one of the little shops that lined the strip. 

“Hey!” 

“Shut up,” Wade said, keeping a casual grin on his face, just in case anyone happened to spot them. “Make another fuckin’ noise and I’ll break your nose, asshole.”

The asshole in question looked like he was about ready to test Wade’s patience, but at least he kept it quiet when he asked, “Wh-what do you want?”

“Just your wallet,” Wade told him, already reaching for the pocket where he’d seen the kid tucking it away. “Gimme it and I’ll leave you alone.”

“You can’t just--” 

Wade sneered and held up the fancy leather wallet. “Watch me.”

Asshole whimpered and stared at the wallet, looking about ready to cry, and Wade rolled his eyes. “Look, everyone agrees, money ain’t everything. You’ve got more money, right? What you don’t have is another  _ face.  _ We understand each other, buddy?”

Doing this out in public, without the safety of the school administration as his biggest worry, made Wade’s hands shake slightly as he opened the wallet and pulled the cash out. He glanced through the rest, decided none of it was valuable (what the fuck was he gonna do with a gift card to H&M, anyway?), and tossed it back at Asshole, hitting him in the chest.

He’d already tucked the money away when Asshole dropped the wallet and had to bend down to pick it up. Wade left before he stood back up, ducking out the other end of the alley and blending into the crowds leaving the park. 

On his way back to Mott Haven, Wade found another dollar pizza place. He stopped in and got himself what amounted to three quarters of a pie for six bucks, and tried not to think of Peter as he ate slice after slice, filling his empty stomach. 

He felt kind of guilty now. He hadn’t actually hurt that kid, and he’d only ended up having about forty bucks in his wallet for Wade to take, but Wade knew that if Peter found out, he’d be upset. 

But then again, who cared what Peter thought? He got upset with Wade at the drop of a hat, apparently. And anyway, he wasn’t the one who had to live off of rice and ketchup packets when his cash flow was cut off. His family probably loved him. Peter was probably the kind of guy who ate half a pretzel and threw it in the fucking trash.

Except that he wasn’t, because Wade ate lunch with Peter pretty regularly. Peter always finished his food or gave it to Wade, who he called a human garbage disposal. Peter had told Harry one time not to take food he wasn’t going to eat.  _ Harry _ was the kind of shithead who’d eat half his food and throw it away. 

It was difficult to find good reasons to be pissed off at Peter. 

Except that Peter had been mad at Wade and he wanted to be mad in return. Even though Peter had looked genuinely distressed before he practically bit Wade’s head off.

Maybe he hadn’t been having a delayed reaction to Wade’s ‘date’ comment after all. The more Wade let himself think about it, the less that made sense. And it appealed to the hope that had apparently not vanished as thoroughly as Wade thought, that Peter might not have minded the flirting. No, he wouldn’t blame this on Peter being a dumb straighty yet.

Despite his best efforts, the thought emerged that maybe this was less about Wade, and more about whatever shit was going on with Peter that made all his friends act so careful around him. Maybe Wade should be acting that careful, too. Maybe Wade should figure out what the fuck the problem was so he didn’t step in it again.

He resolved to try again on Monday. Maybe Peter would still be mad and everything would suck. Or it was possible that things would be fine.

Which would just mean he’d kinda made a decision about what to do about this money situation, right? He’d do what he had to do, ration the cash as much as possible, and just not tell Peter otherwise. 

It wasn’t perfect, but he had to worry about himself, first. Being hungry was worse than being bad.

\-------

**October 7th**

By the time Peter arrived back home to Aunt May smiling and asking about his new friend (because he’d texted her and told her he’d be out til dinner, she knew where he was and she wasn’t worried at all), he’d realized that he had freaked out a little on Wade for no good reason, and then run off without explaining himself. 

He didn’t have Wade’s phone number and he didn’t know anyone who had it either, so he couldn’t very well text and apologize. So instead he spent the whole weekend feeling like an asshole. Wade seemed to have that effect on him. 

A little voice in the back of his head said it was because he actually cared about Wade and considered him a real friend now, but that would mean all kinds of complicated things, like explaining to him why he’d freaked out, so Peter put that thought to the side for the time being.

On Monday morning, Peter stood out on the steps at school with Wanda and MJ, who were both talking with enough animation that Peter could just stand quietly and try to cope with being awake. Harry was there too, and had brought coffee. Peter loved his friends.

He wasn’t really following Wanda and MJ’s conversation, so when they both turned to look at him expectantly, he blinked and frowned. “Uh, sorry. What?”

“I said, you’re friendly with the new kid. Wade? He sits with us at lunch, right?”

Wanda looked extremely displeased. “Seriously, Peter?”

Peter lifted his hands defensively. “He’s not that bad--” Wanda’s expression turned incredulous, and Peter hastened to explain. “No, really. We talked about him going after freshman, and he promised me he’d stop.”

“Uh huh,” Wanda said skeptically. “And you just believed him? Why?”

“Cause we’re friends,” Peter replied, and took a long sip of his coffee. He needed more caffeine in his system for this conversation. “Look, he’s nice to me, and he said he’d stop. I can’t just tell him to go screw himself. I don’t need to be making enemies out of guys like him, anyway.”

“Wait, is he forcing you to hang out with him?” Wanda asked, looking indignant. Peter groaned.

“No! No, of course not. He’s just... he’s not as bad as everyone says he is. C’mon MJ, Harry. Back me up here. You guys see him at lunch.”

Harry shrugged. “I dunno why you let him sit with us.” Peter glared. Fortunately, MJ came to his rescue.

“Yeah, he’s a little rough,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear as she considered her words. “But he’s--” 

She glanced at Harry and lifted an eyebrow, and to Peter’s surprise, Harry nodded grudgingly.

“He’s an okay friend,” he said. “For Peter. He’s not my friend.”

“Yeah, we know,” Peter grumbled, but he was satisfied. Wanda’s outrage had settled into something closer to confusion.

“If he really stops,” she decided, crossing her arms. “Then maybe I’ll leave it alone. But if he goes after any of my friends again, you’re gonna hear about it, Pete.”

“You know what? Good,” Peter declared, already nodding. “Definitely. I wanna hear about it. Let me know if he does. But I don’t think he will.”

They stared each other down for several long seconds, until Harry cleared his throat and said, “I think the bell’s about to ring, so... yeah. I’m gonna go inside. Bye, guys.”

Peter waved vaguely at him as the other two said real goodbyes, and held his coffee up to his nose, just for the smell of it. MJ had convinced Wanda to move on to a new topic, and they were caught up in discussing something for their shared music class when a presence made itself known at Peter’s elbow, and conversation died.

“Hey, Petey,” Wade said with obvious caution, giving the girls a little wave. Peter nodded back.

“Hey, Wade,” he said. Wanda, at least, was glaring, and Wade had clearly noticed. He shifted uncomfortably, clearly still thinking of Friday.

“Did I-- uh... is everything...”

Peter took pity on him. “Yeah, sorry about that, you’re fine.”

Wade blinked, and his eyebrows lifted. “You sure? Cause if you just tell me what I did--”

“You didn’t do anything,” Peter assured him, kicking lightly at his shin. “Don’t worry about it, I promise. I was just being an idiot.”

Wade, who had been staring down at Peter’s foot, looked back up at those words and grinned. “Nah, you’re not an idiot. You’re too smart to be an idiot.”

“I’m glad somebody thinks so,” Peter said, smiling back. Now that he’d been reassured that Peter wasn’t mad at him, Wade’s whole posture had relaxed, his shoulders straighter, and he looked almost criminally cheerful for ten to eight in the morning.

“Soooo, I was thinkin’,” Wade said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “We got that project for Spanish. Wanna be partners?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Peter said, inhaling more coffee. “As long as you promise to do most of the presentation part.”

“ Sí, señor, ” Wade agreed immediately. “Donde está la biblioteca!”

“That’s the spirit,” Peter said, and Wade beamed at him. 

The bell really did ring, then, and Wanda interrupted their conversation by saying, “Hey, Peter, can I ask you a question real quick before class?”

“Sure,” Peter said. “See you in Spanish, Wade?”

Wade took the obvious hint, though he gave Wanda an uncertain glance as he took a step back. “Yeah, see you then!” 

They watched Wade walk away in silence, until finally, Wanda said, “I get why you think he’ll do what you want, now. He has a huge crush on you.”

Any denial Peter might’ve made was overridden by MJ’s sudden shriek of, “Oh my god, he totally does!”

“No he doesn’t!” Peter exclaimed, his voice hushed by contrast. Even the argument with Wanda earlier hadn’t woken Peter up as thoroughly as this, but now he was wide eyed and bright red with embarrassment while the two girls laughed. 

“He definitely does,” Wanda said, smirking. “He didn’t stop looking at you once the entire time he was standing there. Barely even noticed we were here.”

“Yeah, he’s always pretty focused on you at lunch, too,” MJ agreed, nudging Peter in the side. “When he talks to me, it’s always like he’s just waiting for you to do something interesting so he can start looking at you again.”

“Awwwww,” Wanda cooed, and Peter glared at her.

“I thought you hated him,” he pointed out. She shrugged.

“That was before I realized how cute it is,” she said. “I bet he really will stop being a bully for you. How romantic.”

“I can’t believe you’re both like this,” Peter said, exasperated and wishing desperately that his cheeks would stop burning. “He doesn’t like me. We’re friends, ok?”

“Nope,” MJ said, adjusting her bag on one shoulder. “He definitely likes you. It’s not even a question at this point. The real question is, what are you gonna do about it, tiger?”

Peter made a wordless growl of exasperation and stormed off. Wanda laughed, and they both followed him up the steps to the front doors of the school. He was glad they couldn’t still see his face, because despite his vociferous objections, Peter had to wonder if they were right.

\----

**8 October**

On one of his wandering walks around the city after school the next day, Wade ended up in the crowds at Times Square and started thinking about pickpocketing. New York was known for pickpockets, especially in crowded areas like this. But would that give him an advantage, or mean he was just more likely to get caught? 

It’d be a nice, low risk way of getting money if he could manage it. He followed a group of tourists toward the M&M store, hands stuffed in his jean pockets, and eyed their bags and purses thoughtfully. How did you even take something from a closed bag without the owner noticing? 

He still had more than half the money from Coney Island, and if he was careful, he could probably stretch it til the beginning of next week. But that still meant that at some point next week, he’d have to do something about feeding himself, and Peter hadn’t said much of anything about stealing. Just about beating up kids younger than him. 

He knew Peter wouldn’t like this either, but he also didn’t have the mental space to worry much about hypotheticals like that. Stealing was better than bullying because Peter hadn’t objected to the former, and that was good enough for him.

Wade passed through Times Square, and as he approached Central Park, he spotted a guy who looked around his age stuffing a bunch of dollar bills in his back pocket as he took a gyro from a man at a food cart.

They hadn’t looked like singles, and those were Jordans on his feet. That was enough for Wade to take an interest. The guy walked into Central Park and Wade followed, pulse already thumping hard. No one noticed Wade, his mark included, so Wade crossed his fingers that he wasn’t about to tank his life in New York by getting cops involved in his business, and caught up. 

“How old are you?” he asked the guy, who glanced sideways at him in surprise and just stared for a few seconds before answering. 

“Seventeen,” he said, and Wade nodded. That technically meant he was fair game, right? 

Close enough.

“Cool,” Wade said. He was a little taller than the guy, and used it to his advantage as he steered them off the path and into the trees. He looked startled, but didn’t react in time, and soon Wade had him cornered between a bush and the brickwork at the bottom of a bridge. “Gimme your cash.”

“What?” the guy asked, stupidly in Wade’s opinion. He scowled.

“Your money. Give me your fuckin’ money, dickhead. Or else.”

The guy sneered, trying to duck past Wade and back out onto the path. “Fuck off,” he said, which meant Wade basically had no other option than to punch him hard in the stomach. He doubled over, gasping, and Wade grabbed the collar of his jacket, yanking him forward to fall onto the ground while he fumbled in the guy’s back pocket and grabbed both his wallet and the extra cash he’d stuffed there earlier.

“Idiot,” Wade said, fishing the rest of the money out of the wallet and tossing it onto the grass in front of the guy’s face, among the spilled lettuce, cheese, and gyro meat. “Coulda kept your dinner if you just handed it over.”

After that, Wade stuffed the money in his jacket and got the fuck out of there, keeping his head down and moving fast til he’d left the park behind on the north end of town.

When he counted out his haul once he was closer to home, he found he’d taken that big risk for a measly twenty bucks. 

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” he groaned, and tucked the money away in his pocket, glaring at nothing all the way back to the apartment. 

He should’ve just taken the guy’s fucking shoes.

\---

**October 9th**

After school on Wednesday, Peter barely managed to make it ten feet out the front doors before he was grabbed by his backpack and yanked backward. 

He yelped and pinwheeled his arms, thinking wildly that it must be Flash and he was about to get punched in the side of the head. He didn’t fall or get hit, though. 

Instead, the person behind him steadied his shoulders and a familiar voice said, “You could be down on your back in the street being kicked right now, you know.”

“Why would you kick me?” Peter asked, adjusting his backpack as he turned around. “There’s no one else around, Nat. It’s just you making these threats. I thought we were friends.”

“You’ve missed three Wednesdays in a row,” Natasha said, arms crossed. “You’re lucky I didn’t do more than threaten.”

Peter ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, even though she was only a year older than him, because it made her squint like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to smack him over the head or ruffle his hair. 

This time, she placed a hand firmly between his shoulder blades and began steering him in the direction of the gym where she worked. 

“I would bet you haven’t been doing your exercises, either,” she said as they walked. “You’ll be rusty and useless all through the lesson; it’ll be like starting over. I’m just going to tell you in advance that I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Um, wow,” Peter said, trying to pause at a crosswalk. She pushed him onward into a gap in traffic, and they managed to avoid getting run down through what Peter was certain was pure dumb luck. “I’ve done some of my exercises. I’m not completely useless.”

“Some,” she scoffed. “So you’re only mostly useless.”

At the pace Natasha set, they reached the gym in no time. Peter didn’t complain, since he knew damn well he’d been falling down on his side of their agreement. Aunt May would have his head if she realized he’d been skipping these  _ free  _ self-defense lessons Natasha had agreed to give him. But it was just so difficult sometimes to find the energy for it. He felt drained by Monday afternoon some weeks, never mind Wednesday. 

“Go get changed and meet me on the mats in five minutes,” Natasha ordered, shoving him lightly toward the men’s locker room. “I’ll call your aunt if you try to sneak off, Peter.”

“I’m not gonna sneak off,” Peter grumbled, his shoulders hunched with embarrassment. “See you in five.”

He changed into his workout clothes in record time, and hurried out to the practice room where Natasha was already dressed and waiting. They did their warm up stretches in silence. Peter managed to get entirely lost in thought, part of him wishing she hadn’t caught him and he could have just gone home, by the time she spoke. 

“I’m getting my own class,” she said, sitting next to him on the floor, both hands wrapped around her own outstretched foot. Peter was in the same position, and turned his head to look at her.

“Really?” he asked, switching legs. “Like, officially?”

“People will pay for it,” she confirmed. “It’s similar to what I’m doing with you, but at beginning, intermediate and advanced levels.”

“So you’re really getting three different classes,” Peter said, impressed. “Awesome. You’re really good at teaching. You’re gonna do great.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Now you can tell me what you’ve been doing that is more important than my class, since I’m such a good teacher.”

Peter grimaced. He should’ve known that when Natasha revealed something about her own life, it was about to be weaponized. It had taken six years of friendship, despite her faint but clear accent, for her to admit that she had moved to New York from Russia as a child, and only because she had wanted him to let his guard down during a fight so she could kick him in the chest. He found out through other channels that it was because her parents had died, even though that was something they had in common.

“I’ve just been--” He broke off as he climbed his feet, aware that she wouldn’t accept ‘I felt like shit’ as an excuse. The whole point of these lessons was to pull Peter out of funks like that, to make him feel less helpless and hopeless and blah blah blah. She wouldn’t like to hear it, anyway. “There’s this new kid at school,” he said instead, as a distraction.

“New kid?” she prompted, bouncing on her heels. She kicked out with one foot, and Peter dodged. “Freshman?”

“Junior,” he said. “He’s from Canada.”

“Is he from Quebec?” she asked, looking faintly interested. “Jean-Paul has been teaching me French. It would be nice to have someone else to speak with.”

“Jean-Paul?” Peter repeated, intrigued and wary. Natasha shifted left, then right, then jabbed at Peter’s side, which he defended easily. They were still going slow, so far. “Who’s that?”

“He works here,” she said, and it became clear that the little detail wasn’t as interesting as Peter had hoped. “He and his husband sponsor these big skiing trips to Quebec every year. It’s an excuse to go home and be paid for it, I think.”

“Smart,” Peter said, finally seeing an opening to duck under Nat’s incoming punch and sweep her legs. She leapt over his kick and immediately went on the offensive. “Uh-- are you gonna go?”

Her next punch was aimed at Peter’s jaw, and she barely missed. “I haven’t decided,” she said. “Is the new boy from Quebec?” 

“No.” Peter dodged another punch and frowned. “I mean, I don’t know. He’s kind of from all over. I guess he and his dad move a lot. He listed like twenty places when I asked.”

“Remember your footwork,” she responded. “How did this new boy keep you away from me for three weeks?”

Peter faltered, then found his bearings again just in time to get punched in the ribs. He grunted and fell back briefly. “He-- we’re friends, but he’s also kind of a bully, or... or he was? He promised me he’d stop, but I don’t know. I don’t understand why he did it in the first place.”

“Life is shit,” she said, moving in on him and striking out for his wrist. Peter knew this trick, and only barely got his elbow up in time. “Sometimes that’s all you have to give.”

“More shit?” Peter asked. She nodded once, and with another strike, captured his wrist. Despite having learned how to defend against that move last time, he quickly found himself flat on the mat. Winded, he lay there for several long seconds. “The two of you have a lot in common, I think.”

“Do we?” she asked, standing over him and watching him without offering to help him up. At least she hadn’t kicked him yet. “How so?”

“I dunno,” Peter said, rolling into a crouch so she couldn’t attack him on his way up. “He’s really nothing like you at all, but there’s just... I don’t know. He just reminds me of you. This look he gets sometimes. I can’t explain it.”

Natasha didn’t come after Peter for several seconds, which gave him time to stand up unharrassed and even attempt a solid kick.

“Then be kind to him,” she said, turning to avoid his foot and grabbing him by the ankle instead. He yelped and found himself flat on his back again. “And tell me how you could have avoided losing so badly if you had been at our last three meetings.”

The lesson continued, and Peter slowly remembered what he’d forgotten in the almost month since he’d been at the gym, which was that being here, working with Nat and managing to occasionally block her or even get in a hit of his own felt like an accomplishment, and talking with her about what she, Peggy, Steve, and Bucky were up to now that they’d all graduated felt normal and safe. 

He returned to the locker room at the end of their hour in a much better mood than he’d arrived, and once he was dressed again in his day clothes, hair still slightly damp from the shower, he unlocked his phone and set a couple more alarms for Wednesday after school, to remind himself that he really did want to keep doing this. 

\----------

**11 October**

Wade was wandering around town a couple days later, minding his own business when he came across Nate for the first time. 

Then again, ‘minding his own business’ meant something different to Wade than it did to most people, and it normally ended with him mouthing off to the wrong person and getting punched in the face. Which was kinda what it felt like might be happening here.

“Who the fuck you think you’re talking to?” demanded a tall redhead, emerging from the mouth of the alley Wade was loitering near. Wade shrugged. 

“I was watchin’,” he said, gesturing over the guy’s shoulder at the small knot of people playing Mexican dice at the other end of the alley. “You moved ‘em, dude. That’s cheating.”

“Who the fuck you think you  _ are _ ?” Redhead asked, shoving Wade’s shoulder roughly. 

“I’m just saying,” Wade pointed out, letting himself fall back a step without complaint. 

“Oh, leave the kid alone, T-Ray.” This from one of the girls in the group. “You did cheat, I fuckin’ saw it too. You lose this round.”

T-Ray sneered at Wade, and looked ready to casually fuck Wade’s shit up before returning to his game, but another, deeper voice called him back to the group.

“You’re gonna lose all your cash if you don’t get back over here, dumbass.” 

This time it was another guy, a brunette with a streak of white in his hair. T-Ray couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Wade, but this guy looked like he was at least twenty. He also ticked a lot of Wade’s boxes, so when T-Ray shoved him one last time, sending him sprawling against a nearby parked car, Wade simply straightened up, dusted himself off, and followed him back to the group. 

“Can I play?” he asked, directing his question at the brunette, who laughed. Probably at Wade’s daring, which made him feel a little smug despite T-Ray’s strident objections.

“Buzz off, kid,” another guy agreed, but the blonde girl (who looked around the brunette’s age), spoke over him. 

“You got any cash? It’s a twenty dollar buy in.”

Wade puffed out his chest. “Do I got any cash?” he asked, and pulled a wad of singles out of his back pocket. Sometimes he could sneak them out of Tom’s wallet, one dollar at a time, but more often that was just what he had after spending his ill-earned money, bit by bit. “With hips like these, darlin’, how could I not?”

Blondie laughed, and Wade grinned at her, counting out the money and putting the rest away. 

“Fine,” T-Ray huffed, shoving Wade when he joined the circle. Wade let himself tip sideways toward the brunette, and caught a flash of his cologne. “Your turn, Nate. New guy can wait a round.”

Nate, the brunette himself, shoved Wade back out of the way too, and picked up the dice. Wade let himself be pushed again, and settled into a comfortable crouch in the circle, watching as the game progressed until it was his turn. 

“Fifty five, bitches,” Wade crowed, waving a hand in a flourish over the dice. T-Ray scoffed. 

The blonde, whose name was Inez, said, “Kid, can you not count? You’re losing.”

“I went to public school all my life up til now, course I can't count,” Wade said, winning a few huffs of amusement from the group. 

"You in one of those fancy charter schools then?" asked Richie, who had purple hair. Nate rolled his eyes. 

"Don't start," he warned, and Wade glanced at him with curiosity. 

"What, you got a problem with them fancy charter schools?" Wade asked. "Did a charter school boy fuck your sister or something?" 

When Wade was able to reflect back on his words later, he was generally able to grudgingly pinpoint a comment like this one as the part of the conversation where he'd earned that black eye. It was a lack of impulse control, pure and simple; snappy comebacks just spilled out of his mouth before he'd even fully thought up the sentence, so that even he was often surprised by what he'd said. 

Fortunately, Nate either didn't have a sister or he was too focused on staring down Richie to be pissed off by what Wade had said. 

"Which one d'you go to, kid?" Richie asked, grinning sidelong at Nate. The others seemed to be waiting for the punchline too, glancing up briefly between rolls of the dice to catch the exchange. Nate snatched up the dice and shoved Ritchie. 

"There's dozens of those goddamn schools in this city," he began, and now Wade was interested.

"I go to Midtown High," he told them. Richie tipped back on his heels, his back falling against the dirty alley wall while he laughed as Nate scowled like Wade had deliberately betrayed him. 

“Nate’s dad teaches there,” Inez explained. “You know Mr. Summers?”

Wade looked around at the group of grinning jackals, all focused on him with new interest, and grinned back. “He’s my English teacher.”

The game was very nearly forgotten in favor of the whole group interrogating Wade about Mr. Summers and mocking Nate, who had apparently lied out of his ass about who his dad really was. He’d originally claimed his dad was in jail for all kinds of fucked up shit. It made the rest of the group laugh themselves sick that the reality was much, much more embarrassing.

Wade soaked up the attention like a sponge, answering every question and glancing at Nate occasionally who, despite looking seriously irritated, was listening just as closely as everyone else.

Wade made a point of not saying anything  _ too _ shitty about Mr. Summers. Nate had broad shoulders and soft looking hair and he was very, very easy on the eyes. Wade liked it when Nate looked at him. He thought he’d like to be welcomed back to this group, if he ever ran into them again.


	6. Chapter 6

**October 12th**

“I’m glad you suggested this, Peter,” Aunt May said, fussing with her purse and black hair doily as they walked together up to the synagogue. She stopped on the top step just outside the door and turned to him, her expression serious. “If you need to leave early, we can. Just say the word and I’ll make our excuses.”

Peter looked down and away, nodding his head too quickly. May held his hands in a light, warm grasp and leaned in to kiss his cheek. Then she rubbed at the spot with her thumb, looking a little misty-eyed herself.

"Now, let's get in there. We don't want to be late."

Peter pulled the door open, still not quite able to speak past the lump in his throat. He let May wrap a hand around his elbow as they walked through the vestibule and into the synagogue proper. Crowds of people were still milling around, finding their seats and chatting quietly with their neighbors as they waited for the service to begin. 

That solemn, hushed weight that always filled Peter's chest when he came here settled in, and some of the pain that never really went away these days felt almost muffled. 

People he knew, and had known since he first moved in with May and Ben, waved at them and smiled, clearly delighted to see them back. May took on most of their well wishers, shaking hands and accepting hugs as they passed on their way to an empty spot, pausing occasionally for a more in depth chat with a few people. Peter mostly forced a smile and nodded, accepting cheek kisses and shoulder touches passively. 

He spotted Wanda, Pietro, and their father a few rows up, Pietro waving wildly at them and beckoning them to the open seats to their left. Peter touched May's arm and gestured, and she nodded. 

Wanda beamed too, and even Mr. Lenhsherr had a warm, pleased smile for Peter and May when they had finally worked their way through the crowd and up to their seats. 

"You came back!" Wanda exclaimed, hugging first Peter and then Aunt May, who accepted the gesture with quiet laughter. 

"If I'd known we had so many fans here, I would have dragged Peter back ages ago," May said, and Peter couldn't help but smile at that as Pietro clapped him on the back. He knew Aunt May had always felt, as a convert, like she was welcomed simply because of Ben. He was glad she was getting to see how wrong she was.

"Not fans, May, friends," Mr. Lenhsherr said, and May gave him a teary smile, reaching past Peter's shoulder to squeeze Mr. Lenhsherr's hand. 

The rabbi stepped up to the bimah, and the room quieted. Peter's group all turned to face the front, and the opening notes of a psalm began. Peter felt a tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying loosen, and Aunt May’s shoulder bumped against his. A quick glance at her showed the same emotions Peter was currently struggling with, echoed on her face. Being here again felt like coming home. Peter had assumed that seeing the empty spot next to May where Uncle Ben belonged would hurt, and it did, but that was a familiar pain by now.

What was more immediate was the warmth, the familiarity of it all, and the people standing all around them, welcoming them back without any judgement for how long they’d been gone.

This was alright. This was good, even. It was just like with Nat. He didn’t want to do anything right up until he got there and was immersed in it, which was when he remembered how much he  _ liked _ doing all the things that seemed like impossible chores in the quiet of his room. And this, of all things, he could be certain Uncle Ben would want him and Aunt May to keep up.

The psalm continued, and Peter let his eyes close for a few seconds, just listening. He could do this. He really could. He could get up every morning, even when it was hard, and he could go to school and be there for Aunt May, and be part of his own life. He could do the things he liked doing even when the misery wanted him to crawl into a dark, miserable place and never come out. He was in charge. He could come here, he could meet up with Nat and the Science Club. He could even convince someone like Wade to take a better path, and that was probably harder than anything else, right? He could do this.

He’d be okay.

By the end of the service, once the rabbi had finished speaking and the congregation had been dismissed, Peter felt centered and certain of himself. The crowd broke out of the neat, ordered lines of seating and began to gather in bunches at the ends of rows and in the walkways, chattering and catching up on the past week. People were already looking their way. 

Peter made eye contact with Aunt May, and understood that again, they were of a similar mind: not today. It’d be too much this first time back. They ducked out of their row of seats and around the outside of the sanctuary, finding a side door to slip out, back to the vestibule. They reached the front steps before almost anyone else had left the sanctuary. 

May found Peter’s elbow and tucked her hand there, squeezing his arm gently. 

“I think it’s--”

“ _ Peeeeter! _ ”

That was all the warning Peter had before Pietro appeared, crashing into Peter and using his shoulder to swing himself round to face him and Aunt May, and nearly staggering with the extra momentum. 

“You came back!” 

Peter ducked his head, though he couldn’t stop a small smile from escaping. Wanda arrived a second later and gave first Aunt May, then Peter big hugs. 

“I told them to take it easy,” Mr. Lenhsherr said, arriving soon after Wanda and looking apologetic. “But we are all glad to have you both back.”

“Lorna said Bobby asked about you the other day actually. I think he misses having you around to help with the kids in your mentor group,” Wanda told him, looking like she might be ready to drag Peter off right then and there to find her older sister and Bobby. “I don’t think he likes working with just Gert. I think she scares him.”

Peter nodded, quietly amused. Gert could be a little intimidating if you couldn’t match her wit for wit. Bobby just needed to try a little harder. 

“Everyone’s been asking when you’re coming back to youth group,” Pietro said, still hanging on his arm. “The kids and everyone all made cards and stuff. You should see the one Kitty made you, it’s--”

“Pietro, would you  _ stop _ bringing that up?” Wanda cut in, shoving at him. “He’s just jealous she made you such a nice card and wouldn’t go to homecoming with him.”

Kitty was three years younger than Peter, so Pietro definitely didn’t have any competition there. He shrugged awkwardly, but Pietro was already glaring at Wanda and arguing back, cheeks red.

“That’s  _ not _ the point, Wanda--”

“You’re too big of a dweeb for Kitty Pryde anyway, she’s joining cheerleading next year--”

“ _ You’re _ too big of a loser for Matt Liebowicz, but  _ you _ still try to talk to him every  _ week _ \--”

“Wanda, Pietro, I said take it  _ easy _ ,” Mr. Lenhsherr reprimanded, and they stopped their bickering, glancing sheepishly between their father and Aunt May.

“Sorry,” they said in unison. Peter hadn’t really minded, even if he hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise. It felt nice-- normal even-- to stand out on the steps and listen to them go back and forth. 

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Aunt May reassured them all, beaming at them. “It is nice to be back, and to have seen you all again.”

Mr. Lenhsherr didn’t need to be given a hint, and gracefully dragged his two kids away after brief goodbyes and promises to see each other again soon. Pietro walked backwards and waved until he tripped up a stair and nearly fell. 

Peter and Aunt May were finally able to steal away, and started the familiar walk home, May’s hand still resting at Peter’s elbow. 

“How was that?” she asked, after a few blocks of comfortable quiet. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, nodding even as he frowned down at the sidewalk. “Yeah, it was... good.”

May squeezed Peter’s elbow and leaned into him a bit as they waited at a crosswalk. “Next week?”

Peter hesitated until the light went green and they started walking again. 

“Yeah,” he said finally, much quieter. “I think so.”

They walked in silence for another hundred feet or so, until Aunt May spoke again. “Ben would have been so proud of you today, sweetheart. I’m proud of you.”

Peter’s forehead furrowed hard, and he blinked several times, a warmth filling his chest even as he thought that it wasn’t fair at  _ all _ for her to have just said that out in public like this. 

**\----**

Finding ways to keep busy away from the apartment was both easier and harder in a big city. Wade could wander New York City for days without seeing the same thing twice if he wanted, but without money, there weren’t a whole lot of places that would welcome a kid like him through their doors without some suspicion. Central Park was fine and all, but it was full of people and it got boring, just wandering around looking at grass and trees and ponds all the time. He couldn’t even go in the zoo.

At least up in places like Weyburn, Wade could just wander through town, smoke in the park, or fuck around in the woods behind the high school, unobserved and unbothered. In New York, it was hard to find a place near where he lived where he wasn’t potentially being watched, not without climbing one of the many buildings that seemed to be perpetually under construction. And Wade only did that when he really needed to clear his head with a healthy dose of fear-fueled adrenaline.

He liked to hang out at the arcade a few blocks from school, but they’d caught on that he was just loitering and didn’t actually have more than a few quarters to spend on any given day. Whenever the security guard with the beer belly and the badly trimmed beard noticed him, he got chased out immediately, whether he looked like he was causing problems or not. 

That guy was a dick, anyway. Wade shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, sullenly and defiantly loitering just outside the arcade in full view of the front windows, for lack of anywhere better to go. It was the fifth time he’d been kicked out now. He was probably gonna have to find a different arcade soon.

The relative quiet of the sidewalk gave Wade’s brain the space it needed to pick up and turn back into the whirlwind it’d been all afternoon. Dex, a guy Wade had made sort-of friendly acquaintances with (and secretly thought was a huge asshole) knew Peter, sort of. It made sense. They must’ve gone to school together since they were kids. People like that knew each other pretty well, probably, just because. So he’d known what was wrong with Peter, and he’d dangled the information in front of Wade like a slab of meat until he finally gave in and found the asshole a pack of his favorite brand of cigarettes.

Long story short, Peter’s uncle got shot in the street, not too far from school. Maybe four blocks in the opposite direction to where Wade was now, slouching against a brick wall, scowling at his feet. Peter saw it happen. That was why he almost never smiled. That was why his friends always gave him those worried little looks when he wasn’t paying attention.

Wade couldn’t really relate. If someone shot Tom in front of him, Wade would probably shake their hand. But Peter seemed like the kind of guy who had a nice family, full of good people who were actually worth something. People who mattered.

It made Wade want to find whoever did it and put them in the ground. He knew whoever it was must be someone more on his own rung, a worthless dirtbag, and it made him furious to know that some piece of shit had gone into Peter’s life and destroyed something he cared so much about. The anger it made him feel was different from his normal, low-simmering, impotent rage. This felt cleaner, somehow.

However clean it was, it was still undirected, still useless. He still couldn’t  _ do  _ shit. He couldn’t make Peter feel better. Couldn’t bring his uncle back, or anyone. Peter was just gonna keep being miserable about this, and what good was Wade to him, except to make him even more miserable when he inevitably fucked up and ruined things like he always did?

Wade shoved away from the wall, shoulders tight, and set off down the sidewalk at a fast clip, not sure where he was going but needing the movement. 

Seemed like the good people were the only ones who ever really got hurt. It wasn’t fair. That quiet sadness in Peter’s eyes whenever he wasn’t being distracted wasn’t fucking fair. Wade, not paying a bit of attention to where he was walking, bumped into someone, their shoulders crashing together roughly.

“Fuckin’ watch it,” he snarled, and the guy who’d run into him hurried away without even apologizing or saying shit. He looked around Wade’s age, in fact, maybe a year younger at most, and Wade glared at his back as he retreated.

The guy was wearing a Northface jacket, and he had what looked like a pretty nice pair of aviators on his head. He looked like the kind of prick who had everything he wanted in life. His family were probably all riding around in fancy town cars and shit. Nobody was gonna shoot his uncle in the street like a dog.

It wasn’t fair that people who had everything were always so goddamn ungrateful for it. 

It took a few seconds for Wade to notice that the guy hadn’t left his sight despite walking pretty quickly, and a second after that to realize that was because Wade had turned around and was following him. He’d been so angry he’d gone into full autopilot, his feet deciding to go after the asshole without input from his brain.

And why not? People like that got everything they wanted. It was only fair to share the wealth around. And rich fucks like that weren’t gonna volunteer to spread their cash around without a little... encouragement. 

Wade was just helping them to be better people, that’s all. 

He caught up with the guy and kept pace with him, just a few steps behind, matching their footsteps together. They weren’t on a high traffic road, so he just had to wait til they passed an alley and no one in particular was looking at them.

Wade took his hands out of his pockets and rolled his shoulders, blood pounding in his ears. If he couldn’t help Peter, at least he could help people like this learn they weren’t better than anyone else. Wade was worse than all of them. Might as well be his duty to give douchebags a lesson in the hard parts of life they’d never find out about otherwise. It was probably the only way he’d ever manage to contribute to society.

He saw his opportunity and didn’t hesitate, grabbing the guy by his collar and dragging him sideways into the next alley, shoving him directly behind the dumpster. This close, the dumpster smelled fetid, and Wade used that to his advantage, shoving the guy’s face closer to the open lid and saying, “Your mama never teach you to say ‘excuse me’, loser?”

Now that Wade was getting a closer look at him, he seemed even younger than he’d appeared earlier. Maybe barely in high school. Didn’t matter though. A snob’s a snob, whether they’re fourteen or sixteen. 

“I-I’m sorry!” Wade rolled his eyes, hard. The kid looked freaked out, but it was too little, too late as far as he was concerned. “Excuse me, excuse me!”

“Gotta say it nice, like ya really mean it,” Wade told him, leaning in close. “Gotta make me really feel like you’re gonna be a polite little dudebro from now on, pumpkin.”

The kid twisted under Wade’s grip, and he shoved him back against the brick wall, one hand on each shoulder. “I really am sorry,” he said, his eyes starting to fill with tears. Wade sneered.

“How ‘bout you prove it?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately light, despite the undercurrent of obvious anger. “Gimme a little token of your apology. Somethin’ nice. Like your wallet.” His eyes flicked up to the aviators. “And your glasses, too.”

“My-- my glasses?” Now the little punk really was crying, reaching up half-heartedly for them, though he seemed to know better than to touch them. “They were my grandpa’s, please don’t take them--”

Wade glared at him, the muscles of his arms feeling twitchy, like he could and probably should hit something. “Is that a fuckin’ lie?” he demanded, his chest infuriatingly tight. “If you’re lyin’ to me, you little--”

“I’m not!” the kid said, tears sliding down his face. He was snotting up, too. It was gross. Wade dropped his hands from the kid’s shoulders, still staring daggers. To his credit, the kid didn’t even try to move, just stood there sobbing. 

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Wade growled. His fists clenched and unclenched, but it was suddenly much more difficult to look this stupid crying kid in the face and think of him as a pretentious shithead who deserved this. “Just-- just... gimme your fuckin’ wallet.”

The kid handed it over immediately, and Wade opened it up, finding less than ten bucks inside. He huffed angrily, but took it and stuffed the money in his pocket, shoving the wallet back into the kid’s hands and stomping off without waiting to see what he did next. 

He couldn’t do anything right. Couldn’t help anyone. Couldn’t pick out a stupid mark without ending up harassing a stupid  _ kid _ for what barely passed for  _ lunch _ money. Couldn’t even feed himself without ruining someone else’s day.

He really was a waste of space. He ought to crawl into the sewer and starve to death. At least then the rats would get a few meals out of him.

At this point, Wade was living purely on spite and the occasional piece of pizza. He wasn’t gonna die and give anyone the satisfaction of not having to deal with him anymore. He knew damn well Tom would celebrate not having a kid to drag around the country every time somebody took notice of them. His teachers wouldn’t care. Nobody ever cared when he left. Weasel texted him maybe once every few months, to send him shitty memes. Even Nessa had a new guy. Wade had seen the pictures. Nobody else ever even bothered. 

And why would they? Who wanted to be around a guy like him? What good did he do anybody? All he ever did was fuck up.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that gives this fic the violence against minors/child abuse warning. If you'd like to skip it, it's the section titled '23 October', and it's also the last section, so you can just jump right into the next chapter.

**13 October**

That Sunday, Wade had the apartment all to himself. It was one of those calm days where he woke up, realized he was alone in the apartment, and did whatever the fuck he wanted. Today, that meant sitting out on the fire escape, wrapped up in a hoodie, zoning out to a tower defense game on his phone. 

He startled badly and nearly dropped his phone through the grating of the landing he was sitting on when he heard a sharp, insistent knocking at the front door of the apartment. People didn’t knock on their door. No one needed them for anything. Even Tom’s drinking buddies never came looking for him; he just joined them when he decided he wanted some socializing. 

Wade climbed through the window and approached the door cautiously, careful not to let his footsteps make any sound on the laminate floor. He peered through the peephole and felt instantly better when he realized it was just the landlord.

“Hi,” he said, cracking the door open so that the man couldn’t see past him into the apartment. 

“Yer rent’s late,” the landlord said, his tone brusque and impatient. “You got the money?”

“Do I, the teenager, have the money?” Wade repeated, glancing up and down the hallway beyond. “No.”

“I need it by five today or yer dad’s gonna have a big fuckin’ late fee,” the landlord told him, peeling a page out of the little book in his hand and slapping it on their door near the knocker. It said ‘LATE’ on it in big bold letters over an itemized bill.

“Jeez, we get it,” Wade said, rolling his eyes. “You’ll get your goddamn money, dude.”

“By five toda--”

“By five today,” Wade agreed, nodding. “Yep. Bye.”

He closed the door in the landlord’s face and locked it with the handle, the deadbolt, and the chain. Then he scowled as he pulled his high tops on, wondering where his dad would be this time of day on a Sunday. 

Right before he left out the window, he reconsidered and unlocked the chain, just in case Tom beat him home. It’d piss him off royally if he thought Wade was inside, ignoring him, and Wade would end up punished for the broken chain one way or another.

He went up first, climbing the stairs of the fire escape slowly, in no particular hurry to face Tom and try to explain the situation when he was drunk. When he reached the top, he poked his head cautiously up over the ledge and, finding the various lawn chairs and coolers abandoned, sighed. 

The next possibility was Logan’s place, so Wade turned right back around and climbed all the way down to the alley behind the building, jumping from the lowest landing of the fire escape without bothering to lower the ladder. He twisted his ankle a little, but it wasn’t too bad, so he kept walking. 

Logan’s apartment was about six blocks north and three east, which took no time at all if you were in a hurry. Wade wasn’t, so he ambled along with his hands in his pockets, singing under his breath and examining every unattended bicycle and bit of graffiti he passed. People in New York locked their shit down, which was a shame. Having a bike would be nice. 

In less time than Wade might have hoped, he reached Logan’s apartment building. The door was propped open with a brick, so he went right inside and climbed the four flights to the right apartment.

“Your dad’s not here,” Logan said, upon opening the door. Despite his words, he took a step to the side so Wade could come in. After a moment of hesitation, he did.

“Well, where the fuck is he?” Wade asked, annoyed. Logan shrugged.

“Went on a beer run about an hour ago,” he explained, and let the door fall shut behind Wade. “Shoulda been back by now.” He seemed extremely unconcerned, but then, Wade would have been too if he hadn’t needed rent money.

“Can I wait for him to come back?” he asked, hovering about ten feet away from the door as he stared around. He’d been inside Logan’s place before, but not more than once or twice, and never for very long.

“Yeah, I ain’t gonna stop you.” Logan went back to the recliner as he spoke and dropped down onto it, slouching comfortably. “Be my guest. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.”

Wade felt himself straighten up slightly in surprise. “Really?”

Logan must’ve heard something in his voice, though his eyes didn’t move from the hockey game on the tv. “Don’t touch the alcohol, kid.”

“Course not,” Wade said, waving a hand. “Who me? I don’t even drink. I’m a literal child.”

“I’ll notice if any goes missing,” Logan shot back, looking back at Wade now, his eyebrows pulled together in a scowl. “Don’t test me.”

“Yessir,” Wade responded smartly, which seemed to satisfy him. Logan went back to watching his game, and Wade went into the kitchen, nearly vibrating with the possibilities.

The fridge wasn’t exactly fully stocked, but neither was it filled only with takeout and condiments like the one at Wade’s house. Since he was waiting anyway, Wade grabbed all the deli meats and cheeses and made himself an enormous sandwich, eyes darting toward the living room every few seconds, convinced that Logan was about to come in and shout at him for overdoing it. 

He had his sandwich made and all the supplies returned to the fridge within five minutes, every single package replaced exactly as he’d found it, as though he’d never touched them. The food he finished in about six bites, and he had to stop halfway through to get a drink of water from the tap when his chest seized up from eating too quickly.

He was grateful he’d finished so fast when Logan appeared in the doorway to the kitchen about a minute after he’d cleared up, to find Wade drinking at the sink again. 

“Fuck’re you doing?” he asked, looking briefly confused. “Get a goddamn glass, ya animal.”

He walked over to a cupboard as he spoke and opened it, taking down a cup and handing it over. 

“Sorry,” Wade said, taking it and turning it over in his hands to examine it so that he could avoid meeting Logan’s eyes. He could sense that Logan was staring at him.

“You lost or something?” Logan asked finally, and Wade looked up in surprise. “Food cupboards are these three.” He pointed out two near Wade, then tapped his palm against another one to his right. “Then there’s _nonalcoholic_ drinks and more food in the fridge. Think you can figure out where that is?”

“Yessir,” Wade said, nodding and dropping his eyes to his glass again. “Thank you, sir.”

“Yeah,” Logan said, then kept walking through the door at the other end of the kitchen. Wade listened for a moment, and realized he’d gone in the bathroom.

Wade had to eat more now, or else Logan would think he really had been stealing alcohol. Not that he minded. He beelined for the correct cupboards and found that Logan was the kind of man who preferred his food boxed or canned. The cupboards were absolutely stuffed with all kinds of non-perishables, though the selection leaned toward microwavable and ready-to-eat single serving snack foods. He probably packed a lunch for work.

Wade’s mouth watered. If he brought his backpack with him next time he came, he could pull together enough food to last him nearly a week, hopefully without Logan ever noticing. The man might count his beer bottles, but Wade doubted he’d count his easy macs or his chunky beef and veg soup cans.

Looking through the selection, Wade immediately pocketed several little bags of mixed nuts and about four granola bars, grateful for his baggy pants. 

When he heard the bathroom door open again, Wade quickly grabbed a bag of chips and some beef jerky and held them up when Logan reappeared in the doorway.

“Can I have these?”

“Have at it,” Logan said, barely glancing at the food in question. Wade nodded and tore open the chips, following Logan back into the living room and perching on the edge of the couch with a new plan in mind. 

“You have... weights,” Wade said, having given the room a careful once over and found nothing else of much interest. Logan didn’t seem to be someone who collected books or movies, and he didn’t have any gaming systems either. He had a tv on a stand in front of the couch and the threadbare recliner, a battered old army foot locker in a corner, and a set of weights in another corner. That was really it. That just wasn’t much to work with if he wanted to convince Logan he had a good reason for wanting to come back on the regular.

“Yep,” Logan said, but there was a commercial on TV, so he wasn’t ignoring Wade entirely. 

“I... uh,” Wade said, still looking at them. There was a bench with a set of barbells, and a small rack of dumbbells. “Do you use them a lot?”

Logan lifted an eyebrow at Wade like he might think Wade was a little slow. “Sometimes,” he said. Wade nodded.

“I just... keep gettin’ mugged,” he admitted, having finally figured out the right angle of approach. Logan’s expression cleared immediately, which proved it was a good plan.

“Your daddy oughta teach ya how to fight,” he said, and Wade had to suppress a flinch at the idea. “But if you promise to take care of my shit, I’ll show ya how these work and you can use ‘em when I’m not busy.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Wade said enthusiastically, realizing suddenly that he might actually be able to keep his promise to Peter, now. “I’ll be real careful, I promise.”

“Good. Now shaddup. The game’s on.”

\-------

**15 October**

The weight lifting plan was a complete success. Tom only really went to Logan’s house to watch hockey, and the Maple Leaves weren’t playing again til Thursday. Wade stopped off at Logan’s house Monday afternoon after school, and Logan showed him how to use the weights without dropping anything or hurting himself. He corrected Wade’s form and, with an impressive level of nonchalance, gave him a hard plastic stick on a keychain which he called a ‘kubotan’.

“You hit somebody in the face with that, you’ll have enough time to get away,” he explained, then leveled a sharp glare at Wade. “I catch wind you’re using it at school, there’ll be hell to pay, kid. Got it? In fact, you get caught with it at all and yer on your own.”

Then he all but demanded that Wade take up jogging in the mornings. 

Wade still brought the kubotan to school the next day, but he kept it hidden deep in his pocket and didn’t bring it out, even when certain jock assholes were practically begging for Wade to break their faces.

He let his palm rest over it and glanced sideways at Peter, who he got to sit next to in Spanish just about every day, now. They were going to be partners in every group project from now on, too, though Peter didn’t know that yet. Wade kind of doubted he’d mind, which was one of the best things about Peter. 

They were supposed to split into pairs to work on conjugations, and Wade grinned when Peter’s head immediately turned toward him. He slid his desk sideways across the floor, the screeching blending into the din of other students doing the same, and twirled his pencil between his fingers. 

“Okay,” Peter said, his workbook open to the right page. Wade hadn’t brought his, so he just leaned closer to look at Peter’s, a blank sheet of paper in front of him. “Preterite. Conjugations. This is easy.”

“Yep,” Wade agreed, watching the line form between Peter’s eyebrows. “You got the vocab list?”

Peter shuffled papers around on his desk, still frowning. He took this class so seriously. Wade loved it. “Here it is,” Peter said after a few seconds, holding it up. “Okay, let’s quiz each other first. Um. Hablar?”

“Hablé, hablaste, habló, hablamos, hablasteis, hablaron,” Wade said promptly. Peter looked up at him, still frowning, then flipped a couple pages in the book. 

“I think that’s right,” he said after a minute. Wade nodded. “Okay, my turn.”

“Beber,” Wade said, leaning back in his chair to watch Peter. Sure enough, he closed the book, then closed his eyes and made a little squinty face. Perfect. Wonderful. Adorable.

“Bebí, bebiste, bebó, beb--”

“Bebió,” Wade interrupted.

Peter opened his eyes. “What?”

“It’s an -er verb,” Wade reminded him. “So it’s got that -ió ending.”

“Oh crap, right,” Peter said, immediately picking up his pencil and scribbling something in his notebook. Wade tilted his head to read it.

“Magic verb ending?” he read, lost.

“Yeah,” Peter said, like it made total sense. Wade continued to stare, so Peter shrugged. “It’s a mnemonic, so that I’ll remember. You know, like that song?”

Wade shook his head, hoping against hope that Peter would sing whatever song he was talking about if he played dumb enough.

“You know the song,” Peter insisted. “It’s old, but people know it. You know. ‘Eee-yo-o’.”

Wade shrugged. He genuinely still didn’t know what Peter was talking about, but this was fun. “Maybe it didn’t reach Canada,” he suggested.

“Didn’t reach-- you’re so dumb,” Peter said, but he was smiling. “Come on, Wade.” And then, the moment Wade had been waiting for arrived, and Peter started singing, quietly, so their neighbors wouldn’t hear. “‘ _Every little thing she does is magic, everything she’ll do just turns me on_.’ You know that song.”

Wade definitely knew the song. “What’s that got to do with Spanish verbs?” he asked, hoping for just a little more. Peter did not disappoint.

“It’s the ending,” he explained. “ _-io-o_. Like in the song.” 

“Ohhh,” Wade said, though he’d figured it out when Peter first started singing. “I get it. I like it.”

“Yeah, I think it’ll help,” Peter said. And then, bless him, he sang some more under his breath as he wrote out conjugation lists in his workbook. 

Wade sat blissfully next to him until the bell rang, occasionally singing back bits and pieces, just to encourage him. 

“Do you wanna hang out again this week?” Wade asked, as they left class together. Peter still had a half smile on his face, and it gave Wade life and made his chest light. No stones today. 

“Yeah, but I can’t tonight or tomorrow,” Peter said, nodding to himself as he spoke. “I have science club tonight, and an after school class tomorrow.”

“You’re such a fuckin’ nerd, Pete,” Wade said, nudging him with his elbow as they turned the corner toward the lunch room. “I can’t believe how nerdy you are.”

“Shut up, it’s a self defense class,” Peter said, elbowing back. “So it’s cool, actually. You’d like it.”

“Oh yeah?” Wade asked, elbowing Peter one more time, just because he could. “Maybe I’ll crash.”

“Uh, actually you can’t, because it’s only a class for really cool people, and you’re not invited,” Peter told him, a teasing little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 

“Sounds dumb,” Wade declared. “I have better things to do on Wednesdays, anyway. In fact, I’m busy all the time doing much cooler stuff.”

“Sure you are,” Peter said, and then Wade’s heart stopped as they got into the line for food and Peter pulled out his phone, glancing around to make sure no teachers were nearby. “What’s your number then? So I can check if you’re too busy being cool before I wanna hang out.”

Wade’s eyes widened very slightly, but generally, he tried to play it off as no big deal as he rattled off his phone number and Peter saved it under ‘www.weirdo.ca’. 

“You are the biggest dweeb I’ve ever met in my life,” Wade informed Peter, when he saw it. “When did I even tell you my middle name?”

“Like the first day you met me,” Peter said, sending Wade a text. Then he tucked his phone away and picked up a lunch tray. “Either right before or right after you started talking about--” He glanced at the lunch lady, then at Wade, and finished with, “Animal husbandry.”

“Oh yeah,” Wade said cheerfully. He didn’t pick up a tray at all, but when Peter glanced at him with a frown, he pulled lightly at the strap of his bookbag and said, “Packed a lunch today.”

Peter’s expression cleared, and they went through the now familiar process of paying for lunch and walking to the same table as always, where Harry and MJ were already waiting, sitting in the same seats they usually sat in. 

It was kind of nice, having such a predictable routine every day. Especially when he got to have it with Peter.

\-----

 **23 October**

Things were looking up lately. Wade spent half his time at Logan’s place, as long as his dad wasn’t there. Logan seemed generally bemused by his constant presence, but he didn’t seem to _mind_ Wade lifting his weights or eating his food or adding his commentary to whatever Logan happened to be watching on the tv. 

Once, Logan had opened his front door, only for Wade to spot his dad sitting on the couch in front of the tv. That had been an awkward moment, but Logan hadn't asked about it later, even though Wade had just turned around and left without a word. 

Wade kept up with jogging. He’d started out planning to go once a week in the mornings before school, but quickly found that if he woke up early enough, the streets were quiet and calm and he could run for what felt like miles without stopping. After a quick shower in the locker room at school, he was all worn out and relaxed just in time for class. 

It only took a few days for Wade to find himself out jogging every single morning before school. He’d even told Peter about it, who seemed curious enough that Wade was hoping to eventually cajole him into joining in a couple mornings a week. 

He sat sprawled out on the couch in the living room at home, scrolling through their texts. There were already hundreds of messages, but he wasn’t reading very closely. Instead, he pictured Peter in tiny jogging shorts, with a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead and red in his cheeks. Inevitably, he paused his scrolling to imagine showering together in the locker room afterward, and got a little short of breath.

He was so caught up in the potential of a wet, naked Peter and the otherwise empty boys’ locker rooms that he didn’t hear the snick of the lock. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the door slammed and Tom was suddenly in the apartment with him, shrugging out of his jacket.

He hadn’t intended to interact with his dad tonight. Ideally, he’d never have to, but he had sort of hoped to be hidden away in his room by the time his dad got back from wherever he’d been. Based on how wobbly he was, probably the bar. If he’d been up on the roof or at Logan’s place, he would’ve stopped home first.

And now, if Wade just got up and went to his room, he’d be calling attention to himself and Tom would inevitably follow. Wade hated it when his dad came in his room. So instead, he tucked his phone away and sat up, pretending to be very interested in the old newspaper abandoned on the couch next to him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” Tom asked, when he’d come away from the door and spotted Wade on the couch. Wade shrugged and gestured with his paper.

“Reading, sir,” he said. He hunched his shoulders as he spoke, well aware that it was a shitty cover story at best, and that the truth wouldn’t fare any better. At least this way he wouldn’t get his phone taken away.

Sure enough, Tom scoffed. “You think I’m a goddamn idiot? You expect me to believe you’re just sitting here in the dark, reading a fuckin’ newspaper?”

“I have good eyesigh--”

“Don’ fucking lie to me,” Tom said, the slur in his words more pronounced now. Wade decided that he felt like a sitting duck, down on the couch while Tom towered over him. He dropped the newspaper and stood, circling around the end table and back toward the kitchen, where it was both better lit and he’d be closer to the front door. 

“I’m not lying,” Wade lied, his heart rabbiting as he did his best to keep a piece of furniture between them whenever possible. Tom glared myopically as Wade moved. “It’s for a project for school--”

“You’re fulla shit,” Tom snarled, and Wade stepped fully into the kitchen, putting the table between them as his dad followed. “You’re a little liar. You’re no better than your fucking mother, she always lied to me too--”

The edges of Wade’s vision went faintly red. “Fuck you,” he snapped back, and there wasn’t enough time to regret his rash decision before Tom had shoved the table into Wade’s legs. Wade stumbled back against the fridge, scrabbling to catch himself as magnets clattered down behind him, but he’d badly miscalculated. Tom was a lot quicker than Wade would’ve expected him to be after a night at the bar, and he had Wade by the neck before he could get his feet under him. 

The kitchen tilted and spun, and then Wade cried out in pain as his head hit the ground with a solid thump. Tom’s steel toe boot pressed down on his throat, smelling of mud and spilled beer, and Wade’s hands clawed at the dirty leather helplessly.

“You’re no better than your fucking mother,” Tom repeated slowly, and he pressed down harder against Wade’s windpipe until Wade choked and tears sprang to his eyes. His feet kicked out and hit a chair, the clatter of it falling over faint against the rushing blood in his ears. “You hear me? You’re just like her, a fuckin’ cancer. You’re a cancer, boy.”

He let up enough on Wade’s throat that he could gasp in a huge breath and exhale a sob. Wade was furious with himself for giving Tom the satisfaction, but he continued to fruitlessly shove at his boot and choked out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please--”

It took a solid thirty seconds, every single one of which felt like the longest of Wade’s life so far, until Tom finally relented and took his boot off Wade’s throat, only to grab him by the hair. He dragged Wade to his feet, ignoring his yelp of pain, and used his grip to send Wade lurching toward the hallway that led to their bedrooms. 

“Get outta my fuckin’ sight,” he spat, and Wade caught himself on the corner of the wall and staggered to his bedroom, not bothering to pause to catch his balance. Tom was behind him now, out of Wade’s view, and he didn’t want to get sucker punched or grabbed again. 

Once safe in his room, Wade wanted to slam the door, but he knew that’d just invite further punishment. Instead, he shut it quietly, then buried his hands in his hair and hid his face in his forearms, feeling the pressure build in his face and throat as he tried not to scream audibly. 

He couldn’t stop himself from crying, however much he hated it, so he just paced back and forth across the length of his bedroom, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes and lashing out with abortive kicks that struck air and changed nothing. 

It took several long minutes for Wade to stop hyperventilating enough to tell if he could still breathe normally, but it seemed like Tom hadn’t done any permanent damage. It still hurt like a motherfucker, though, and Wade rubbed his throat as he turned away from his reflection in the window and froze. 

His door was still shut, but he’d forgotten there wasn’t a lock on it, here. Not even the shitty little handle lock he’d had at their last house. Tom could just burst in at any fucking second. 

Wade hurried over to the door and pressed a careful, trembling hand to the wood, half convinced that Tom was about to abruptly shove the door open and throw a punch. He glanced around the room, then darted over to his bed and grabbed his shoes. 

He hurried back and eased himself down to sit on the floor, quickly tugging them on and lacing them up, to give himself more traction if his dad tried to force his way in. With his back pressed against the door and his feet braced firmly on the floor, Wade hid his face against his knees and did his best to cry quietly, muffling the noise in his sleeves. 

He wanted to scream and break things and hurt Tom back, and his every muscle was tensed with the effort it took to sit there on his bedroom floor instead, doing his best not to exist. He knew from past experience how giving into those urges would go.

After some indeterminate amount of time, Wade calmed down enough that he’d stopped crying, though he hadn’t stopped shaking yet, and his head and throat still ached fiercely. He sniffed and rubbed his nose against his sleeve, staring up at the empty sky through the window across the room.

He imagined getting up and going to the window. He’d open it and look out, and Peter would be walking past below, for no special reason. He’d notice Wade right away, come up the fire escape, climb right in Wade’s window, and understand everything immediately. Then he’d pull Wade into a hug and say, ‘come stay with me, you’ll be safe there,’ and they’d go back to Peter’s house (which looked a lot like Nessa’s house back in Aberdeen), and Peter would let Wade sleep in his bed with him. It would be warm and calm and Peter would let him stay forever.

Wade closed his eyes, rested his forehead on his knees, and hugged his legs, trying to drag the fantasy out as long as possible. Eventually, his heart stopped pounding so hard and his breathing calmed to something approaching normal. The Peter in his head petted his hair and kissed him, and promised Wade everything was going to be okay.


	8. Chapter 8

**October 24th**

Wade hadn’t promised not to fight at all. Peter had to repeat that thought to himself several times as he pushed through the crowd that had formed just outside the school, next to the steps. He could hear Wade and Eddie Brock over the excitement of the other students, snarling at each other, as well as the dull, fleshy thuds that were familiar to Peter as punches being thrown back and forth. 

Peter kept his head down, wanting desperately to get inside and get away from the whole thing. He didn’t want to see Wade fight. He didn’t think it’d set him off as badly as it had last time, but he also had no interest in finding out. 

Wade had promised not to beat up freshmen. He’d specifically told Peter that he wasn’t agreeing not to fight assholes, and Peter had said ‘good enough’ at the time. 

So Peter needed to leave it alone, even if it made him antsy and angry and... afraid. 

He liked Wade, a lot. Wade was funny. He had bright blue eyes that got all squinty when he smiled too big at the dumb jokes Peter made that literally no one else laughed at. He was upbeat and weird and he made Peter smile even when Peter felt like going home and hiding in the back of his closet until graduation. He’d found Peter at his locker before school yesterday and brought him coffee. Wade was a good friend. A great friend, even.

And Peter had said it was good enough. So Wade’s fighting was his own business, not Peter’s, and he should leave it alone.

He got inside the building and hurried down the hallway, away from the students crowding around the windows in the atrium to watch what was happening outside, and spotted several teachers hurrying toward the front doors. At least it’d be over soon. Wade would probably be fine, right?

Peter’s heart didn’t need to be racing like this. Wade could handle himself. If he was going to be feeling any emotions about Wade’s fighting, it should be disapproval, not worry. He didn’t understand why Wade always needed to get into it with the other meatheads like this. Wade barely even qualified as a meathead, even if Tony and Bruce and Wanda and... well, basically all of Peter’s friends had, at some point, warned Peter off spending time with Wade.

Even MJ, who saw Wade most days at lunch and knew what a softie he could be, had tentatively brought up whether or not Peter thought Wade eating with them was a great idea, though he thought that might’ve had to do with Wade showing up a couple weeks ago looking like he’d gone three rounds with a professional boxer before school. 

Peter knew that was more about how he’d frozen up and gone stiff and quiet, pointedly looking anywhere but at Wade, than just with the fact that Wade had clearly gotten in a fight. But it was dumb that Peter couldn’t handle the sight of a few bruises, or a cut lip. Wade could clearly handle acquiring them. 

At least MJ knew better than to bring it up again after their initial conversation. His other friends weren’t as kind. Every time Wade got in a fight on school property, which admittedly had only been three or four times that whole year, Peter had to hear about it. The other members of the Science Club made a point of it, and at least one or two other friends would bring it up, all aware by now that Peter was spending time with the ‘new bully’. 

And here came Tony now, having clearly spotted Peter from the landing. He came sauntering down the steps with a raised eyebrow that Peter kind of wanted to shave off. He was sick of that stupid smug eyebrow.

“So, your _buddy’s_ out in front of the school right--”

“ _I know_ ,” Peter said, his voice tight. Tony fell into step next to him. “It’s Eddie, pretty sure he can handle himself.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a good sign.” Tony glanced toward the window at the end of the hall. Peter knew that if he looked out and down, he’d likely be able to see the crowd dispersing a couple stories below, the fight probably broken up by now. 

Peter gripped the strap of his book bag tighter. “You say that every time, and every time I tell you, he only promised me he’d stop picking on people who _don’t_ deserve it.”

Tony sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s a regular Robin Hood now, is he?”

“He’s not stealing from them, he’s just getting in stupid fights,” Peter muttered. “But he’s not bullying them, okay? If anything they’re picking fights with him.”

“I’m just saying, Peter, he’s not a good guy.” Tony strayed from Peter’s side as they walked to glance out the window, just like Peter had already resolved not to. He pressed close to the glass to look down, and watched for a quiet moment. Peter ignored him and kept walking. “I don’t understand why you’d wanna hang around with a violent asshole like th--”

“Tony, just shut up, okay?” Peter snapped, picking up his pace and speaking over his shoulder. “I know this is probably gonna sound kind of crazy to you, but you don’t _actually_ get to dictate who your friends hang out with.”

“I’m not-- hey, Peter, I’m not trying to dictate anything,” Tony said, and Peter could hear him hurrying to catch up as Peter rounded the corner. He’d sort of hoped this could be his dramatic exit, and was disappointed when Tony caught up, grabbing Peter’s arm and pulling him to a stop. “I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just pointing out that he’s bad news. I can’t be the only person who’s said that to you.”

“Weirdly enough, it’s nobody’s business but mine who I hang out with,” Peter pointed out, shrugging Tony’s hand off his arm. “I’m not asking you to associate with him. So _back off_ , okay? I like him. We’re friends. He promised to stop bullying people and he’s keeping his promise. So stay out of it.”

When Peter looked at Tony again, he wore a pitying expression. “I’m just saying,” Tony pointed out delicately. “Are you sure you’re not just maybe making bad choices cause you’re... you know... still dealing with what happened?”

Peter’s blood boiled. Screw shaving Tony’s eyebrow off, he wanted to deck him. Bringing what happened to Uncle Ben into this was low, and it meant that Peter didn’t bother pulling his punches with his reply.

“Are you sure you’re not just falling back into bad habits?” Peter snapped back. “Isn’t this why you and Steve don’t talk anymore? Because you didn’t like his new boyfriend and you couldn’t let him make his own damn decisions?” He shook his head, ignoring the stricken expression on Tony’s face. “Just drop it. I’ve asked you a thousand times, Tony. Drop. It.”

Storming off without waiting for a response was immensely satisfying, and fulfilled that whole ‘dramatic exit’ thing Peter had been going for a couple minutes ago. It wasn’t until he was sitting in his next class, waiting for everyone else to arrive that an inkling of guilt filtered into his train of thought, and he actually started thinking about what he’d just said.

Tony was being pushy, sure, but Peter had deliberately aimed to hurt. He slumped down in his seat and wrapped his arms around his backpack, hiding his face against it. He’d definitely have to apologize later.

He hoped Wade appreciated what a good friend he was.

\----

Later, after school, Peter finally worked up the nerve to text Wade about the fight. Wade hadn’t shown up for Art, and Peter suspected he’d been sent home early. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since. It was eating at him. He needed to talk to Wade, to listen to him make a dumb joke or chatter endlessly about fruit roll-ups. Anything so that the violence from earlier wasn’t at the forefront of his mind every time he thought of Wade for the rest of the night. It was turning out that thinking about Wade happened more often than Peter had realized, before it became upsetting.

What happened earlier? -PP

_u mean this morning? Brock was being a dick. If I can’t pick on freshies, no one can. ;) - WW_

Don't you think you could’ve stopped him without all the punching? PP

 _probably not._ _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_ _WW  
__I'll try that next time tho, see how it goes. WW_

Uh huh. PP  
You do that. I might even be impressed. PP

_ooh, promises, promises. WW  
_ _So do u have like an extra trig class after school today just for funsies or smth? WW_

No. I'm planning on taking a nap. PP  
Also shut up. PP

_Nice. Should've invited me ;) WW_

To my nap? No thanks, weirdo. PP  
What super exciting and cool thing are you doing Judgey McJudgerson? PP

 _omg yr so lame wow WW  
__W o w. WW  
_I'm _hanging out at Logan's place. WW_

Who's that? PP

_He's my sexier version of yr sexy self defense teacher. WW  
_ _He's one of my dad's friends. He's not a total piece of shit I guess. WW_

Is he the one that got you into jogging? PP  
Wait, how do you know what Nat looks like? PP

_Yeh WW  
_ _I just assumed but good to know. WW  
_ _U sure I can't join? WW_

It's a private class but she's gonna be opening it up for other people soon if you're really interested. PP

_o rly???? ;;;;;)))))))) WW  
_ _I wanna get beat up by ur sexy teacher. WW  
_ _You gonna be there too? WW_

You’re so lame. PP  
I won’t be in the beginner class, which is where you’d have to start since you’re a noob. PP

_Am not, I can defend myself gr8. I’m at least at whatever level ur on. WW  
_ _Soy un luchador, nene. ;) WW_

Sure thing, buddy. PP  
I kinda do want to see Nat kick your ass, actually. PP  
Sounds like you’re ready for the spanish midterm. I’m definitely not. 😱 PP

_Wanna study together after school? I can help!! WW_

Yeah, we probably should. Want to come over Thursday? My aunt will probably make you stay for dinner tho. :/ PP

_ <33333 Tell her I love her already. WW _

I’m definitely not gonna do that. PP

\---------

**October 29th**

Tuesday's Science Club meeting ran long. The students were having a good time lighting ammonium dichromate on fire, and several of the freshmen cackled while the effect took place, pretending that they were summoning tentacled demons. One group had even drawn a pentacle on the desk in graphite. Mr. Richards seemed conflicted about whether he should laugh or give them detention. 

Peter, Tony, Jane, and Bruce were all sitting up by the teacher's desk, just watching now that they'd completed their part in the demonstration. 

“See, Tony? Everyone loves chemistry,” Bruce said as they watched a group set off their third reaction in as many minutes. 

"Yeah, whatever," Tony said with a shrug, one foot kicked up on the leg of Bruce’s stool, rocking it back and forth. “I’m not saying they wouldn’t be impressed with basic chemical reactions, I’m just saying they’d like it more if a robot did it for them.”

Jane glanced up from her homework briefly in order to agree. “I mean, that’s fair.” 

“Jane,” Peter hissed, raising his eyebrows significantly toward Tony, who had perked up. “We agreed on a united minimal-robots front. _United_.”

She laughed and flicked an eraser at Peter. “Not that we should incorporate robots into everything, because we shouldn’t,” she added dutifully. “And honestly, they all look like they’re having a pretty great time ”

“I knew you three were plotting against me,” Tony said, dropping his chin onto his arms with a glum expression. “Et tu, Brute?”

“Who, me?” Jane asked, going back to her notebook. “I was never your Brutus, Tony. I was whoever the main rival was. I was almost president, too, remember?” 

“That’s cold, Jane,” he said. Mr. Richards got up from his desk and hurried to the other side of the room to contain a particularly robust set of tentacles, and they all watched him go, none of them making any move to get up and help. “Real talk though, guys. If you could live on the moon, Mars, or a colony ship headed off into space, which one would you go for?”

Peter looked up from his book with a suspicious squint. “Isn’t your dad friends with Elon Musk?” he asked, glancing at Bruce and Jane, who also looked suddenly very interested. “How hypothetical is this question, Tony?”

“And are you gonna take any of us with you?” Bruce added, kicking Tony’s foot away. 

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know, don’t worry about it. Just answer the question.”

“Can we bring people with us?” Jane asked, tapping her pen against the desk in thought. “And leaving Earth is a forever thing, right? We’re not coming back?”

“If you’re moving to Mars, you’ve gotta commit,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “But are we on the first ships, getting everything set up, or are we coming to an established colony?”

“Uhhh... you can bring two people each, and you’re setting up,” Tony decided, though Peter couldn’t personally tell if this was an arbitrary decision, or passed down from Elon Musk himself. It hardly mattered either way.

“So this wouldn’t happen any time soon. They’re not sending high school kids to space,” Peter said. “We’d all need at least a couple degrees first. So... I’d wanna go to Mars, cause that has the most long term potential, and I’d bring... my aunt, and...”

“Can we really bring nonessential people? Wouldn’t that be a huge waste of resources?” Bruce asked, and Peter kicked at him under the table.

“My aunt’s a nurse, loser,” he said. “She’d be more essential than your dog, or whoever you were planning on bringing.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tony said with a big grin. “We all know Bruce would bring Betty so he’d have a better chance of getting her to agree to go on a date. Less competition on Mars, right?”

“I gotta disagree there,” Jane said, speaking up over Bruce’s embarrassed scoffing. “Peter’s right, no nonessential passengers. Everyone on Mars is gonna be way smarter and cooler than Bruce.”

“You guys are assholes,” Bruce grumbled, red faced. “Who are you bringing then, Jane? Your big dumb jock boyfriend?”

“His name is _Thor_ , and he’d be a great head of security,” Jane said, turning her nose up when Tony and Bruce laughed at her.

“What, you think the Martians are gonna attack us while we’re there?” Tony asked, grinning. Peter shook his head and cut in to defend Jane’s side.

“She’s got a good point, there’s always gonna have to be someone keeping the peace,” he said, absently fist bumping Jane when she offered. “What if people go all stir crazy and start rioting or something?”

“Oh no, now we all know who Peter wants to bring,” Tony groaned, and Peter felt his face heating inexplicably. 

“Shut up, that’s not what I said,” he replied, wrinkling his nose. Bruce adjusted his glasses to peer more closely at Peter.

“You’re not _really_ still hanging out with that guy, are you?” he asked, his words stark with disbelief. “Peter, come on. He’s a _huge_ asshole.”

“No he isn’t,” Peter insisted, dropping his head into his hands and pushing his fingers through his hair. He’d had this conversation a hundred times by now, probably. He stared at the table top as he continued speaking. “Seriously. Wade doesn’t do any of that stuff anymore, okay? He promised he’d leave the freshmen alone, and he has been. Just back off me about this.”

“As far as you know,” Tony said, apparently having taken Peter’s apology after school yesterday as an excuse to start in on him again. “How do you know what a promise means to a guy like Wilson? He’s--”

“Just-- shut up,” Peter said, closing his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to hear it.”

“Uh...” said a voice to Peter’s right. It was Miles, one of the freshman who’d been working at the next table. He stood at the end opposite Peter, between Jane and Bruce, and fidgeted when everyone looked at him. “Not tryna interrupt but... uh... you’re talking about Wade Wilson, right?”

“Yes,” Peter said shortly, and Miles’ eyes darted back and forth between the four of them, obviously a little intimidated. 

“Just figured you should... haha, uh... know,” he said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “He definitely beat my friend up last weekend.”

“What?” Peter asked, after a moment of dumbfounded silence. All three of his friends wisely kept their mouths shut, though Jane had a firm grip on Tony’s wrist and was staring directly at him to keep him that way.

“Please don’t be mad at me, man,” Miles said, his hands coming up in a calming gesture, palms out, as Peter continued to stare at him. “I’m not making it up. He was at an arcade, and Wade stole his wallet--”

Peter caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Bruce, and he was shaking his head. Nobody except Miles was quite willing to look at Peter, but he could feel the tension building, and underneath the confusing surge of anger and disbelief and embarrassment he was drowning in, he knew that silence wasn’t going to last. 

It was Jane who finally broke it, though Peter was already standing up and shoving his book and jacket into his bag. “Peter, wait.”

“I’m sorry,” Miles added, wide eyed as Peter nearly knocked his stool over in his haste. 

Peter shook his head, unable to find any words at all, and did his level best to look like he was storming out of the room instead of running away. 

**\-------**

School was long over, so it was incredibly unlikely that Wade was still on campus. Peter couldn’t bear the idea of one of his friends catching up to him and trying to talk to him right now, so he didn’t even bother going to his locker. He just went straight home.

Everyone had told him Wade wasn’t to be trusted. That he was a bully and probably a liar, and Peter had stood up for him. He’d gotten into fights with his real friends. He’d ignored what was staring him right in the face. And Wade had lied. 

Peter walked all the way home without fully processing any of this. He climbed the steps to his house, pushed open the front door, and took off his coat and shoes. Then he went to his room, looked around, and threw his backpack at the wall with a loud bang. 

“Goddammit, Wade!” he hissed, throwing himself onto his bed and hiding his face in his pillow. Then, for good measure, he punched the mattress a few times. The poisonous, twisting feeling in his stomach didn’t go away, and he sat up, covering his face with his hands. “Augh! I can’t believe him! He’s--”

Peter made another furious sound and pulled out his phone. 

He hesitated over his text messages, trying to work out what to say, then realized this was one of those rare moments that called for an actual phone conversation. He wanted Wade to _hear_ how angry he was.

The phone rang and rang, Peter’s anger mounting as Wade didn’t answer. He hung up when it went to voicemail and called back again, and this time when it rang out, he scowled as the voicemail lady recited Wade’s phone number, then just said, “Fuck you,” and hung up. 

Nobody listened to voicemails. Peter knew, but it had felt good to say that. He sent a text as well, so Wade would get the full picture next time he picked up his phone. 

_Don’t talk to me anymore. PP_

It took another ten minutes, during which Peter stewed and broke his alarm clock accidentally while taking it apart, and then his phone rang. He crossed his arms, glaring at Wade’s face as it lit up the screen, and pointedly ignored it til it went to voicemail. 

Not a second later, his phone lit up again, and this time, Peter snatched it up and swiped to answer. 

“You just ignore everything I say to you, don’t you?” he asked, furiously. “I said, don’t talk to me anymore.”

He hung up the phone and tossed it at his bed, where it lit up again immediately.

“What?” he snapped, once he’d answered. 

“Pete, babe, what’s wrong?” Wade asked, and he sounded as if he genuinely didn’t know, which just pissed Peter off even more. 

“You _lied_ to me,” he said, getting up and pacing around the room. “You said you’d stop, Wade! And what, you just-- what, just... just did it more _quietly_? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?!”

“Find out...” Wade echoed, though Peter could hear a trace of comprehension in his voice now. He knew damn well what Peter was talking about.

“You _mugged_ a fourteen year old _kid_ last weekend!” Peter shouted, holding the phone in front of his face so that he could shout into it more effectively. “What does that even _get_ you? What’s the point of lying? What’s it _matter?_ God, I can’t believe I _believed_ you--”

Peter could hear Wade talking too, faintly, so he put the phone to his ear in time to hear him say, “--really not doing that anymore, honest--”

“You’re so full of shit,” Peter said disdainfully. “You don’t really think I’m gonna fall for that twice, do you?”

“How do I prove I’m not lying?” Wade asked, and Peter was satisfied to hear that he sounded distressed. Good. He should be. He shouldn’t just get away with being like this. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, I will, Pete, I swear--”

“We’re way past that,” Peter told him, and hung up the phone. He tossed it on his bed again and paced back and forth from his window to his bed like a caged animal. When the phone started ringing, he escaped into the hallway, slamming his bedroom door behind him. 

He’d been naive, just like everyone said. To think that he could convince Wade to change just because he’d asked was so stupid. Spending time with Wade at all had been stupid. He should never have bothered. He wasn’t someone who could make a difference. The idea was laughable. All he did was make things worse, and let people get hurt, and blindly believe in absolute bullshit despite all evidence to the contrary, just because he didn’t want to face the reality that people sucked and the world was awful and all that caring ever got you was-- was-- shot in the street for trying to help.

Peter went back into his room, chucked his phone out into the hallway, and climbed under his bed, dragging his blankets with him. 


	9. Chapter 9

**October 30th**

Aunt May left him alone that night, aside from bringing him up dinner and making sure he actually ate it. It wasn’t the first time she’d discovered Peter ensconced under his bed like this since Uncle Ben died, and they had a sort of routine built around it by this point. She was pretty good about giving him space until she decided he’d had too much of it, and the next morning, it turned out that her limit was coming into his room an hour before school started and finding that he was still under his bed.

“Peter,” she said, standing in the doorway. Peter could see her legs in her scrubs, and turned his face into his blanket, closing his eyes. “Sweetheart, did something happen yesterday?”

Peter didn’t respond immediately, and he heard her step further into the room. A large part of him felt pathetic when she had to coax him out like this. He was seventeen years old. That was practically an adult. And yet here he was, hiding like a child. Knowing that he was basically being a baby and coming out from under his bed to face his problems were two very, very different things. His limbs just didn’t work that way. 

“Peter?” she asked again, much closer now. Peter cracked an eye open in time to watch her ease herself down next to his bed, her knees creaking and her hospital name tag swinging from her neck as she shifted to a seated position. She had to leave for work soon or she’d be late. May had better things to do than worry about him. 

“M’fine,” he mumbled, though he knew she wasn’t going to believe him til he came out and proved it. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry.”

“Did you sleep under there, honey?” she asked, instead of acknowledging what he’d said. “I’d bet you’re feeling pretty sore right now.”

After a minute or so of silence, Peter poked his head out through some of the blankets, just enough to see her face. “Everything’s awful,” he admitted. His head hurt in a wide band along his forehead, whether from crying or from trying to stop himself from crying, he wasn’t sure. 

“I’ll call in, we’ll stay home today,” May said, already reaching for her phone in her pocket as she held out her other hand to brush it through Peter’s hair. 

He let her, briefly, then said, “No, Aunt May, you don’t have to.”

“I’m not going to leave you here by yourself, Peter,” May told him, sternly. “What kind of person would I be if I did that, hmm?”

“It’s not worth making a big deal,” he said, still under the bed and showing no real signs of moving. He was well aware of the hypocrisy of his words. “I was just... upset.”

May nodded, her expression kindly and patiently expressing ‘ _ I can see that. _ ’ 

He buried his face in his blankets and eventually muttered, “Wade lied to me.”

May’s hand never paused in his hair, though the long silence suggested she was either working out what to say, or trying to understand his muffled explanation. 

“What did he do?” she asked eventually. Peter turned his head so that he could breathe, and considered that this thing with Wade was so petty and unimportant, compared to the very real problems Aunt May had. He shouldn’t be keeping her from going to work for something like this. Money was tight, he knew that. Really, he shouldn’t be such a burden. He ought to get a job. Just letting his aunt bear the whole burden of supporting them both just because he was  _ sad  _ wasn’t-- “Peter,” May repeated, her voice a bit stern. “Wherever you’re going in that big brain of yours, I want you to focus. What did Wade do?”

Peter realized he hadn’t taken a breath in a bit too long; his chest was tight and his heart was racing. He inhaled, the sound loud in his own ears, and fumbled around under the bed to find his glasses. 

“He-- we had a fight a while back, about him bullying younger kids,” Peter said, his voice subdued. He was sure he’d been wearing his glasses when he came under here. If he’d broken them during the night he was going to be in some trouble. “And he promised not to do it anymore, and I was-- I mean, I believed him. And, well, if he’d really done it, wouldn’t that have been-- that would’ve--”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” May said, already following his line of thought completely. He’d wanted to do something good. To help other people by convincing Wade to  _ be _ better. It’d been something Uncle Ben was really serious about, talking life into being better for everyone, going out and fixing the world, one tiny piece at a time, with words, with his hands, with love.  _ Tikkun olam _ . 

He and May had volunteered at homeless shelters, they’d donated to charities, they’d checked in on their elderly neighbors. Peter had joined them since he’d moved in when he was eight, seeing them make a real impact, watching people’s lives get better because Uncle Ben and Aunt May had decided to care about them. 

The very last thing Uncle Ben had done was try to empathize with the man who’d pointed a gun at him and demanded his wallet, and if Peter had just  _ gone home like he was supposed to _ it wouldn’t have happened, he wouldn’t have been shot--

May had discovered Peter’s glasses somewhere, and slid them onto his nose, catching him off guard and forcing his attention back to her as she spoke. “I should ask. Is he the one who’s been calling and texting you all night?”

Peter frowned. “What do you mean? I don’t know.”

“Your phone was out in the hallway, dear,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket and offering it to him. “And it went off half the night. I had to put it down in the kitchen so I could get some peace.”

Peter took his phone, and sure enough, there were dozens of missed calls and texts, all from Wade. He stared at the notifications blankly while she continued talking. 

“If he wants to talk to you that badly, Peter, I don’t think you should write him off just yet,” May said, in the kind of gentle voice she used when she was trying to help him see something. “Part of our responsibility is not giving up when things seem rough. Maybe there’s more to Wade’s situation than you realize. I’ve always thought he sounded like such a sweetheart, from how you describe him. His life might not be as easy as you think.”

Peter nodded, still looking at his phone, clearing the missed texts one after another without reading them. 

“I just... I can’t talk to him, today,” he said, his voice rough as he finally set his phone down on the floor. “I know I’m supposed to be--”

“You don’t have to be anything except for you,” May said, firmly. She had her own phone out again. “I’ll call in, and we can stay home and watch TV Land, honey.”

Peter took a deep breath and shook his head. “No,” he said again, only this time, he dragged himself out from under his bed as he spoke and sat leaning against it, instead. “I’ll go to school. I’ll be fine.” He looked up as May opened her mouth to object, and pulled her into a hug. “I can do this,” he told her. “I’m gonna do it.”

\------

Peter didn’t look at Wade once the day after that fucking horrible phone call. 

He hadn’t been able to decide, for a while, if he was angry at Peter or himself, but by the fifth time Peter’s phone went to voicemail, he’d come down hard and firm on thinking Peter was right, and that he was a shithead and a liar and a cancer that just preyed on other, better people’s lives and made them unquestionably worse. 

He came into Spanish that day, and Peter was sitting on the opposite side of the classroom. He couldn’t even bring himself to try to apologize, not when Peter’s eyes looked all red like he’d been crying. It was all Wade could do to even stay in the same room as him for a full hour. He knew he shouldn’t. He was probably upsetting Peter just by fucking existing, and for what? Eight dollars from that stupid kid who’d cried and cried and almost definitely hadn’t actually done anything to deserve getting attacked by some piece of trash outside an arcade?

Wade rounded the corner on his way to the art classroom later that day in time to hear Mr. Lenhsherr telling Peter to go take a break in the nurse’s office, shooing him away with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He went without even the pretense of an argument, and Wade watched his back as he walked away, his shoulders hiked up around his ears, both hands clutching the straps of his bag like a lifeline. 

Because he thought he was going to have to see Wade. 

He turned around and walked back the way he came, dropping his bag off in his locker. He wouldn’t need it, anyway. He stalked out through the front doors, working himself up into the kind of miserable fury that had gotten him in stitches in the past, when he ended up picking a fight with the wrong person. The next big, meaty asshole he ran into was gonna get decked, and they’d better  _ hope _ they knew how to threw a punch, because he was looking to break something. 

Loitering out in front of the school was exactly the sort of six foot and change, broad shouldered, well-muscled--

“Nate?” Wade asked, his pace slowing as he reached the bottom of the stairs and realized who it was exactly he’d been sizing up. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Nate turned around with a frown, tucking his phone in his back pocket. His expression largely cleared when he saw Wade, though he still looked a little suspicious.

“You’re that kid,” he said, nodding. “What the fuck you think I’m doing here? Coming to see your dumb ass?”

Wade’s clenched fists loosened somewhat as he remembered. “Oh, yeah, your dad.”

“Oh yeah, my dad,” Nate echoed, though it didn’t seem cruel, not exactly. “You skipping? Cause he’s gonna be out here any minute and if he’s your teach, he’s gonna give you detention for sure, little boy.”

“Fuck off,” Wade said, even as he glanced over his shoulder. “Why’re you meeting him, though? You didn’t seem like you liked him all that much when everyone was talking.”

Nate scoffed. “Who told you that? Roach? That guy’s a dipshit.”

“No man, you just...” Wade trailed off, searching for a way to explain himself. “Everyone said you lied about him. You told them your dad was in prison or something. And you were all embarrassed.”

“The guy I told them about  _ is _ in prison,” Nate said, looking irritated. “Look, not that it fuckin’ matters, but Scott’s my real dad. Blood. He and my mom gave me up for adoption when I was a baby cause they were like sixteen, and it was a whole big Lifetime movie thing where I tracked them down and we reunited and everyone cried and hugged and now we have wholesome family dinners and Dad and I go walk around museums and shit and talk about life.”

He said all this very aggressively. Wade blinked back at him, startled enough that he was momentarily distracted from his emotional turmoil. 

“Well, then why don’t you just tell them instead of lettin’ them think you’re a liar?” he asked, feeling a niggling something in his chest cavity that he couldn’t quite pin down. It felt kind of... twisted up. Wrong, somehow, and like it’d hurt to prod at. He left it alone.

Nate shook his head and waved a hand dismissively. “Who gives a fuck what those assholes think? They’re not worth the time it’d take to tell them my business.”

As he finished that pronouncement, his face brightened into a smile that made Wade’s heart do a little stutter. It took him longer than it should have to realize that Nate wasn’t looking anywhere near him anymore.

“Nate, I see you’re getting to know my students, too,” Mr. Summers said from over Wade’s shoulder. “But I don’t think this one’s supposed to be loose quite yet, are you, Wade?”

Wade turned half a step to face him, shrugging. “We’re buddies, aren’t we? I just came out to say hi cause I didn’t expect to see him here.”

“Yeah, he did,” Nate confirmed, to Wade’s relief. “Hey, dad. Good classes today?”

Mr. Summers regarded Wade over his glasses, but it seemed like he was willing to let his kid vouch for Wade with no complaints. “What did you think, Wade? How was class?”

“It was fine,” Wade said, finding that he couldn’t think of much else to do except shrug again. Mr. Summers wasn’t exactly someone he wanted to hang out and  _ chat _ with. He glanced at Nate, instead. “We talked about how Holden Caufield’s pathetic.”

Mr. Summers’ eyebrows went up. “That wouldn’t be quite how I would have phrased it. Do you think he’s pathetic, Wade?”

“Nuh uh.” Wade pointed a finger at him and took a step back, onto the stairs up to the school. “We’re not in class. You’re not gonna trick me into... learning.”

“I hope you actually turn in the essay I’ve assigned for this book,” Mr. Summers said, with a small smile that Wade didn’t like at all. It suggested that he knew something Wade didn’t. Understanding that he almost certainly did only made Wade scowl harder, but Mr. Summers just blithely continued. “I’d be interested to hear more of your thoughts. But I think you ought to get back to class now, shouldn’t you?” 

Wade made another face, but nodded. “See ya, Nate,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and heading back up the stairs to the front doors, at a loss for anything else to do. He couldn’t exactly walk off down the street with his English teacher watching.

“Later, Wade,” Nate called back. Wade waved over his shoulder and went back inside, heading for the clock tower. He needed some space.

\-------

**1 November**

By Friday, Wade physically couldn’t cope with the way things were. Peter stayed avoiding him, though he sometimes stared at Wade with this perplexed, resigned sadness that shattered something in Wade’s chest every time he saw it. Several of Peter’s friends had been giving him disgusted glares whenever they spotted him. When he saw MJ in the hall on the way to geometry, the expression on her face when she caught his eye was just so fucking disappointed that Wade had turned down the wrong hallway just to escape her.

He walked around all day coiled so tight that his neck hurt. His jaw ached from clenching. Most nights that week, curled around his pillow in bed and staring up at the shadows on his ceiling, he replayed his run in with Nate and thought about ‘ _ those assholes aren’t worth the time it’d take to tell them. _ ’

It bothered him. Ate at him. He’d never felt that way, like he actually  _ wanted _ to tell anyone anything about himself. He’d never weighed whether it’d be worth the time. It wasn’t  _ about _ time. 

Maybe it was just different for Nate. He had something interesting to say. His dad was a cool story. Wade just had a litany of complaints and excuses. No one wanted to hear shit like that.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it, though. 

Would it matter, if he told Peter anything? Would it change things? Probably not. Peter didn’t like people who acted like Wade did. That seemed like the end of the story.

He came back to this conclusion a dozen times. The weekend loomed over his head, and Wade could feel with sharp certainty that he wasn’t going to be able to shake these thoughts for the next couple days. He was going to stew in the agonizing memory of the expression on Peter’s face in class while he avoided looking in Wade’s direction. He couldn’t take two more days of this.

There was a chance, however small, that Peter might at least understand a little. And if nothing else, Wade didn’t think it was possible to make things  _ worse _ . Anyway, if Peter really, honestly, seriously hated Wade for the stupid things he did to  _ eat _ , then maybe they could just fight and Wade could start hating him enough to not care that he was upset. 

It was worth it to try.

He reminded himself of that on Friday at the end of lunch, watching from down the hall as Peter parted ways with MJ and Harry and trudged away, head down. It was worth it. Even if he and Peter just got mad at each other, that was better than this.

He caught up with Peter and walked a few steps behind him, pacing him. Peter didn’t notice him at first, and he got a little closer, til he was next to him, hand shoved in his pockets. 

“You’re gonna tell me to fuck off, but I just wanna say this first,” he began, and Peter jumped in surprise. 

“Wade,” he said, his grip on his textbook tightening. Wade wondered if Peter was thinking about hitting him over the head with it, but that seemed mostly unlikely. His shoulders came up a little anyway. 

“Just lemme say it,” Wade said, a little louder, even though Peter didn’t seem to be interested in interrupting. “I know you’re pissed and you don’t believe me, but I-- I shouldn’t have gone after that kid. I know. I’m sorry. I’m-- I wasn’t-- I shoulda left him alone when I realized he was just a stupid baby.” He didn’t look at Peter at all while he rushed through this, convinced that if he did, he’d see something he didn’t like on Peter’s face and wouldn’t be able to finish. “But I’m really  _ not _ doin’ it anymore, I don’t gotta. Logan-- I mean.” 

He stopped again and took a deep breath. His skin felt too tight. He could feel a fine tremor in his muscles. He risked a glance at Peter, who was watching him with a slight frown. 

“What about Logan?” Peter asked, and it was so much more than Wade had expected at this point that he just stared back at Peter at first. Lunch was ending properly now, and people were starting to trickle into their hallway. Peter looked around at the people suddenly crowding them, and grabbed Wade’s arm, pulling him down another hallway and into an empty music classroom. 

“Tell me,” he said. Wade, who hadn’t put up even a token resistance to being dragged around by the elbow, looked around and pushed himself up onto a table to sit, eyes fixed on one of the windows in the row on the other side of the room. 

“He just... lets me eat at his place,” he answered, with a shrug. “So I don’t... gotta feed myself.”

“Why wouldn’t you just eat at home? Why do you have to feed yourself?” Peter asked, sitting on the table next to Wade’s. If Wade had kicked his foot out slightly, he could’ve caught Peter’s with it. He kept them tucked in instead, slotted behind the table legs. Even as little as Wade had admitted so far was making his body lock up, fingers gripping the edge of the table tightly. He didn’t think he could look at Peter if he wanted to, but he had to answer.

“We don’t really have a lot of money,” he managed to grit out, staring at the floor now. Peter’s foot came into view as he shifted, and Wade’s eyes flitted away.

“I thought you said your dad was in the--”

Wade jerked his head. “He’s not anymore.” He bit down on his tongue, hard enough to hurt, then forced himself to continue. “He... drinks a lot. Forgets to buy food.”

Peter was silent. He must have been thinking it over, because after what felt like an hour but was probably more like a minute, he finally spoke. “So you steal money from people so you can eat.”

“Used to,” Wade grunted, shoulders hunched. 

“You... used to,” Peter agreed, sounding hesitant. “As recently as a week or two ago.”

Wade finally looked up at Peter, glaring. “Logan only started letting me--”

“No, I-- I remember,” Peter said, holding up a hand briefly to stall Wade’s words. “You started talking about jogging around then. And you started packing your lunch.”

Wade felt his face heat up, surprised that Peter had remembered as much. “Uh, yeah,” he said, feeling himself beginning to untense, little by little. “Haven’t done it since, honest.”

Peter pulled his legs up onto the table to sit cross legged, gripping his calves to keep himself in place. His gaze on Wade was piercing and difficult to meet, though Wade forced himself to do it anyway, to let Peter scrutinize him and decide if he believed him or not.

After a few seconds, it seemed like Peter had his answer. “If you ever feel the need to punch someone for food money again, just ask me instead,” he said, slowly. “Even if... you don’t live here anymore. Okay? I’ll send you something.”

Wade frowned and opened his mouth, but Peter’s glare stopped him before he got a word out. 

“I am your  _ friend _ , and I will  _ send you something _ , Wade,” he said, almost spitting the words through gritted teeth. Wade’s eyes widened and he nodded along. “And I will  _ kick your ass _ if you lie to me again. And you need to apologize to Ganke Lee. Okay?”

A bubble of helium expanded in Wade’s chest, however much he felt like he was being lectured by the principal for drawing dicks all over the front doors of the school. “Yeah, okay,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up even as he tried to force himself to look solemn and serious. 

Peter was his friend. That meant he didn’t hate Wade anymore. The tension bled out of him as easily as if he’d made a slit in that part of his chest, and he slid off the table and onto his feet, crowding against Peter’s and pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m really sorry,” he said, grinning as he felt Peter hesitate, then wrap his arms around Wade in return. “I’m a shitty friend. I won’t do it again.”

“You better not,” Peter said, leaning into Wade and relaxing some. “I wasn’t joking. I don’t care that you’re taller than me.”

“I know, I know,” Wade responded, turning his head to press his nose against Peter’s hair, soaking up the contact. “You’ll kick my ass.”

“I can do it,” he continued in a muffled voice, letting Wade continue to cuddle him, which was... well, perfect, in Wade’s opinion. “Don’t think I can’t. Nat showed me how.”

“You’re very scary,” Wade agreed, wondering if he’d get away with a kiss to the top of Peter’s head. Just a little one.

Peter pulled away before Wade worked up the nerve, the tightness in his face gone and replaced by the barest smile. “Thank you for noticing.”


	10. Chapter 10

**November 4th**

Peter’s friends were not impressed when it became clear that he’d started spending time with Wade again. The biggest problem was that it was hard to explain exactly  _ why _ he’d forgiven him without telling everyone Wade’s personal business, which Peter had no intention of doing. It’d clearly been difficult for him to admit in the first place. That kind of thing sure as hell wasn’t Bruce or Harry’s business.

But Wade had apologized, like Peter asked him to. He spoke to Ganke about it a few days later, who seemed nonplussed but pleased enough. Wade had promised to punch someone in the face of Ganke’s choosing to pay him back, which had gone over very well, apparently. 

Peter felt good about Wade again. He enjoyed spending time with him, and he believed he was really sincere this time. That was all that mattered. 

It came up yet again at an assembly during first period on the Monday after Halloween. Peter was sitting at the back of the theatre where they always corralled the whole school so the administration could yell at everyone. Today, Mr. Fury was giving an updated rant reminding everyone of the assembly last week when he’d ranted about why no one was allowed to wear costumes to school for Halloween anymore, no, not even stupid ones, and no, not even without masks,  _ you kids think you’re so clever but you’re all dumbasses and you ruin it for everyone else. _

Mr. Fury’s rants were always at least a little bit entertaining, and MJ was willing to share her venti pumpkin spice latte, so she, Harry, and Peter had their feet kicked up on the seats in front of them, chatting quietly and passing the latte back and forth while they spectated.

Peter spotted Wade five rows down in an aisle seat, slouched in his chair, looking bored out of his mind and staring straight up at the ceiling. A teacher came by and rapped him on the forehead with a rolled up attendance sheet, and Wade scowled, tipping his head. He saw Peter looking and waved with a little grin. Peter waved back. 

“I still can’t believe you’re letting him sit with us at lunch again,” Harry said, following Peter’s eyeline and huffing. “When are you going to tell him to get lost for good, already?”

Peter sighed. “I’m not. Just drop it, okay?”

Harry took the latte from MJ and had another sip, then used it to gesture emphatically. “But he _ literally _ \--”

“We talked it out like responsible adults and he apologized and explained,” Peter said, leaning forward awkwardly in his seat to steal the coffee back. “You wish you were as mature as me, loser.”

“He’s lied before,” Harry pointed out, letting Peter take the cup. 

They fell silent as the same teacher that had just bothered Wade passed by and side eyed them. Once she left, Peter leaned into Harry’s shoulder and said, “I know he’s lied. That’s why I made sure he wasn’t this time. I’m not an idiot.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Harry said. On his other side MJ leaned in, kissed Harry’s cheek, and took her latte back from Peter. 

“Wade has a huge crush on Peter,” she informed him, entirely against Peter’s will. Harry’s eyebrows shot up as Peter sputtered and stuttered through trying to form enough words for a denial.

“Holy shit, he does,” he said, and glanced sideways at Peter, who was now bright red and hiding his face against his knees. The poor freshman sitting in the chair in front of him muttered something, but they ignored him. “Pete, seriously? Come on, man, you can do better. I know for a fact that Jessica Jones is into you. She’s hot.”

“He’s got a point,” MJ said, pinching Harry on the arm as she leaned over him to speak to Peter. “Not about Jessica being hot. Just about... well. He’s not exactly... boyfriend material, is he?”

“No one said anything about boyfriends,” Peter hissed, willing her to keep her voice down. “I didn’t  _ say-- _ ”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t date a dude with a face as fucked up as that,” said Harry, the most heterosexual boy Peter had ever met in his life.

“No,” MJ said, squinting her eyes and tilting her head a bit, looking over at where Wade was now intermittently flicking tiny little bits of paper at nearby students and increasingly suspicious teachers. “The scars aren’t  _ that _ bad. I can see it. He’s a bad boy. Mysterious, dangerous past. It’s kind of hot.”

“ _ MJ _ ,” Harry said, aghast. She gave him an acidic glance.

“I’m sure  _ Jessica Jones _ would agree with me. But Peter, are you  _ really  _ gonna date someone who--”

“MJ, I  _ never said _ I was planning on dating him,” Peter insisted. He reached out a demanding hand for the coffee, and she handed it over without comment.   
Five rows down, Wade tilted his head enough to look at Peter again, giving him a sweet smile and, as if to express his opinion of the assembly, made a broad wanking gesture that had a teacher immediately descending on him with a hissed, “ _ Mr. Wilson! _ ”

Peter hid his grin behind the half empty cup, and when he glanced at MJ and Harry, who were just watching him with matching skeptical expressions, went red and defensively turned his full attention to Mr. Fury’s continued diatribe.

\--------

Wade wouldn’t have expected to accidentally run into the same people more than once in a city the size of New York, but maybe he and Nate’s crew just stuck to the same areas. 

He followed Patch from where he’d been slouching around Central Park, back to an alley where the rest of the group were loitering together, apparently planning something big, judging by the way Roach’s face was all bright with anticipation while they discussed it.

Wade eased his way into the group, and listened to their plans to rob a nearby bodega, wondering if he’d even been noticed until Inez spotted him and rolled her eyes. 

“Don’t get all caught up in that bullshit, kid,” she said, beckoning him over to where she, Nate, and T-Ray were sitting on a stack of pallets a few feet away from the others. “They one hundred percent are gonna pin it on you and bail if shit goes wrong.”

“One hundred percent!” Roach called, and while he sounded kind of mocking, Wade suspected she was completely right. He pulled himself up onto the dumpster next to them, perching neatly on the edge, and eavesdropped on their conversation instead. 

Inez didn’t respond in any way to Roach, picking up where she’d left off with Nate as though she hadn’t heard him, or didn’t give a shit. “So I told him he could go ahead and suck my sparkly purple cock if he thought I was gonna believe he wasn’t cheating on me with her.”

“He definitely was, I saw them together,” T-Ray said, and Inez laughed, a sharp, derisive sound. 

“I  _ know _ he was,” she said, her eyes narrowed. She had a faint accent that sounded more southern than most New Yorkers, although Wade didn’t really know American accents well enough to place it. “I don’t need you to tell me. I ain’t fuckin’ blind. He’s lucky I didn’t take his balls when I left. My daddy always told me you don’t start a fight, but you better finish it if it comes to you.” She glanced sideways at Nate with a little smirk. “I guess your daddy always told you ‘I before E, except after C?’”

“Fuck off,” Nate said easily. Wade caught his eye and grinned at him, and Nate just shrugged back. Wade felt a rush of warmth in his stomach, that he knew something all these people who’d known Nate a lot longer didn’t understand at all.

“How about you?” Wade asked T-Ray, who didn’t like him one bit. Wade might have a masochistic streak, but he also got bored of just listening in after a while.

“What about me?” T-Ray demanded, looking irritated, just like Wade had guessed.

“What’s your daddy always say?” Wade asked, and T-Ray sneered. Wade thought it was directed at him at first, but then he actually answered and he realized he’d been way off.

“My dad don’t say shit to me,” T-Ray said, his chest puffing up. 

“Here we go,” Inez said under her breath. 

He didn’t acknowledge her and kept talking. He didn’t even look annoyed about Wade anymore, just kind of menacing.

“If he even tried to  _ look _ at me, I’d fuck him up,” he said, clenching one of his fists angrily. Wade knew the desire behind that gesture. He  _ wished _ he could say that about Tom. But then, T-Ray was a little taller than Wade, a little older, too. It made sense he could take his dad in a fight. 

“He knows he touches me or my little brother, I beat the shit outta him,” T-Ray continued. “I’ll kick him til his fucking kidneys’re black n’ blue. He’s gonna cower like a little bitch.”

“Yep,” Nate said, while Wade nodded along and imagined what life would be like if he could kick Tom in the kidneys, even just once, and not have to worry about getting beaten to a pulp for it.

T-Ray had gotten up and was pacing around, working himself up. 

“In fact,” he said, pointing a finger at Wade so suddenly he almost fell backward into the dumpster. “He knows next time he touches my kid brother, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”

“Kill him?” Wade echoed, swallowing. T-Ray nodded, his eyes narrow. 

“He knows I can do it,” he said, his voice going low and dark. Wade felt a rush of something he couldn’t quite define. “And if he thinks he’s ever gonna touch Jack again, he’s gonna find out what it feels like to choke on a .22, and have his brains blown out the back of his skull.”

Wade wanted to ask questions. He wondered if it was the gun that let T-Ray get away with this kind of shit with his dad, or if it really was just cause he could take him in a fight. Because Wade wasn’t there yet, but if he could get hold of a gun, maybe. And wasn’t that supposed to be really fucking easy in America--?

“Wade,” Inez said suddenly. Wade glanced at her, then back at T-Ray, who looked particularly satisfied with himself and the effect of his speech. Even if Wade couldn’t get a gun, he could do  _ something, _ get  _ some _ leverage over Tom, maybe even get rid of him altogether somehow... 

“Hey,” Inez said again, her voice sharper. “Did Nate’s dad do anything dumb this week?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it,” Nate said, which surprised Wade enough that his attention really was drawn away from T-Ray.

“What?” he asked, blinking. “Oh, uh. Mr. Summers?”

“That’s what I asked, sweetie,” Inez said. He frowned, trying to come up with what had even happened in English this week.

“Oh yeah,” he said, grinning at them both as he came up with something. Nate waited with a tolerant expression for the Scott Summers roast to begin, and Inez smiled back encouragingly. T-Ray desisted, his audience stolen away, and sat back down on the pallets with a clear sense of waiting to see if this was worth his time.

“So he and a couple of the other English teachers all do this lame thing where they’ll reenact shit from the books we’re reading in class, and he went around with a scarlet ‘A’ on his clothes for like three days,” Wade said. T-Ray stared blankly at Wade for this, til he finally explained, “I think it means he’s a hooker.”

“That’s not what it means,” Nate said immediately, as Inez actually laughed, the sound much more genuine than last time. 

“A whore, then?” Wade guessed. 

“That’s the same thing,” Nate pointed out as Inez snickered. Even T-Ray looked entertained now. “And neither of those starts with an A.”

“An asshole,” T-Ray guessed.

“Maybe,” Wade said, squinting.

“Did you even open the book?” Nate asked, exasperated. Wade shrugged.

“We don’t have to have it done til next week.”

“Addict,” Inez guessed. 

“No,” Nate sighed. Wade had been ready to give another serious maybe.

“Guess not,” he said instead. “Could be alien.”

“Yeah, could be,” T-Ray said, nodding along, even as Nate shook his head. “Or anarchist. Pretty sure it’s anarchist. They got a red A.”

“Wade?”

A sharp voice from the mouth of the alley made everyone stop what they were doing and look up.

It was MJ. About four of the guys wolf-whistled, T-Ray included. 

“You know this chick, Wade?” Roach called, not taking his eyes off her. 

Wade had a feeling Peter would be pretty fucking displeased with him if he let one of his best friends get harassed by a group like this, so he hopped down from the dumpster fast and said, “Yeah, so back off, dickwad.”

The others hooted and laughed at Roach, and Wade pushed through them to put himself between them and MJ, who looked... pissed, actually. 

“Wade! I figured it out!” T-Ray called after him, laughing. “He’s a fuckin’ abortion!”

Wade winced as MJ’s glare intensified. “Come with me,” she said through gritted teeth. Wade nodded and went around the corner, back onto the street, and stepped out of the way of foot traffic.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, for lack of anything else to say. She didn’t stop glaring. 

“It’s Midtown, Wade,” she said, gesturing over his shoulder in the direction of Times Square, a few blocks away. “I was shopping.  _ You _ looked like you were hanging out with a bunch of pickpockets and drug dealers.”

“I don’t think any of them are drug dealers,” Wade said, though truthfully, he had no idea. Then again, if elementary school had taught him anything, it was that if they  _ were _ drug dealers, they were supposed to have started offering him joints and Peer Pressuring him into snorting coke off of one of their dicks by now. Wade would probably have tried it, depending on whose dick he had to interact with. They were really missing out, if they were drug dealers.

“Oh my god,” MJ said, then shoved Wade in the shoulder like she was trying to get his attention. “Look at me,” she said, her face hard and set. “Do I look like I’m joking right now?”

“No-o?” Wade asked, peering at her extra close, just in case. She scowled. 

“Then believe me when I say that you’d better shape the fuck up for Peter,” she said. “Or I don’t care where you got those scars, I’ll give you more. He doesn’t need this kind of  _ crap _ , Wade. He’s got enough to worry about. If you’re planning on getting arrested or taking up a life of petty crime or drugs or.. I don’t know, getting the crap beat out of you in a bar fight like an  _ idiot _ , then stop talking to him and leave him out of it.”

Wade finally started glaring back about halfway through her speech. “Hey, fuck you, I’m not doing shit like that.”

“No?” she asked, gesturing toward the mouth of the alley. “Cause it looks like you’re on your way.”

“I’m--” He shrugged his shoulders, unable to come up with a good response and still wanting to express his offense somehow, but she wasn’t listening anyway.

“Either figure out how to deserve him or leave him alone,” she said, and then left in a whirl of red hair and flowery perfume, leaving Wade leaning against the window of a department store and wondering if she might not have a point.

\--------

**November 11th**

“This is so  _ exciting _ ,” Wade said, a backpack actually slung over his shoulder as they left school for the first time Peter had ever seen. “Can’t wait to see what your place looks like, Petey. Is it hella fancy?”

“Do you... think I’m rich or something?” Peter asked, leading Wade down the steps from the school and heading toward the subway that would take them to his house, where they were going to work on their Spanish final project. They walked together, shoulders bumping companionably. “I’m not rich.  _ Harry’s _ rich.  _ Tony’s _ rich.”

“No, those bastards are the one percent. You’re just normal rich,” Wade said, tapping every lamp post and newspaper box they passed with his fingers, almost compulsively. Peter made a mental note to make him wash his hands when they got home. 

“I’m not rich,” Peter said again, rolling his eyes. “But thanks, I guess?”

They reached the subway, and Wade made them walk through three different cars, looking for just the right place to stand for the next eight stops. Peter tolerated this with mild exasperation, and discovered that casually covering Wade’s hand with his own on the subway pole made him freeze in his tracks and declare himself satisfied with their current location. 

He checked his phone in the silence that lasted three more stops, and considered that MJ and Wanda might-- just  _ maybe-- _ have a very small point.

“It’s just,” Wade was saying, as they climbed the steps from the subway, fully on a roll and showing no signs of slowing down. “Most animals, you get the idea there’s something goin’ on in there, y’know? Horses, I love horses.”

“You were a real horse girl growing up, I can tell,” Peter chimed in, just because. Wade didn’t miss a beat. 

“Oh yeah. Friendship  _ is _ magic. But you can see it, they’re smart. They give a shit. You go have a chat with a horse, and it’s only gonna fuck with you if you piss it off. It has a  _ soul _ , Petey.”

“All horses go to heaven, check,” Peter said, shaking his head with a small smile. Wade carried on with barely a nod. Peter grabbed his arm and tugged him sideways when he started to cross the street the wrong way, and he turned without any resistance at all.

“Even chickens. They’re dumb as shit, but they have... you know. Pecking order. Rules and stuff. And when they look at you, you can tell they’re like ‘who the fuck’s this guy and does he have any food on him?’”

“Yeah, of course,” said Peter, whose closest interaction with a live farm animal had been watching  _ Babe: Pig in the City _ when he was a kid.

“And anybody who thinks dogs and cats aren’t smart as fuck just never spent ten minutes around one.”

“Wade, I know this is probably a dumb question, but where are you going with this?” Peter asked, leading him up the street to the townhouse he and his aunt lived in.

“ _ Cows _ ,” Wade revealed, in a hushed tone. He glanced over his shoulder to Peter’s mild bewilderment, as though one might leap out from behind a parked car. “They’re up to something. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever actually met a cow,” Peter admitted, fishing his keys out of his bag. Aunt May wouldn’t be home from work for a couple more hours. “What’s wrong with them?”

Wade hesitated, frowning. “It’s in the eyes. Very suspicious.”

“The cows?” Peter asked, glancing back at Wade once he’d gotten the door open. “This is my ‘fancy’ house, by the way.”

Wade whistled as he stepped through the doorway, looking around. Peter nudged him out of the way and got the door closed, hanging his jacket up on a hook by the door.    
“I was right, this is fancy,” he said, looking around at the pictures on the wall and the, well. The living room in general. Peter wasn’t sure what about it exactly seemed ‘fancy’. It was a pretty normal looking living room, as far as he could tell. “Do I gotta take my shoes off?”

“Uh... sure,” Peter said, having already bent down to unlace his own. “I mean, if you want. Do your feet stink?”

“Probably a little,” Wade admitted, but he was already toeing off his shoes. He started wandering around, poking at picture frames on the mantle and inspecting one of the leaves on the ficus by the window, as though trying to figure out if it was real.

“Come on, Wade,” Peter said, near the door to the kitchen, watching with bemusement. “I’ll give you a tour.”

He pointed out most of the first floor and got them sodas from the kitchen, then thought better of it and added a box of Cheezits and a couple apples, handing them over to Wade while he led them to the stairs. Wade finished the first apple by the time they reached Peter’s bedroom. He thought to show Wade where the trash can was, but when he’d turned to gesture him inside, he saw Wade pop the whole core into his mouth and finish it off as well.

That was... well. Okay. 

Peter blinked to himself and offered Wade his soda without comment, letting him keep the other apple and the box of Cheezits.

“Spanish,” Peter declared, sitting down in his desk chair and pulling his bag into his lap. He fished out his book and notes, then dropped the bag on the floor. Wade was doing a full inspection of Peter’s room now, too, with much more interest than he’d shown even downstairs. 

“We need to come up with a slogan for our restaurant,” he said, crossing his legs under himself in his seat and clicking his pen. Wade pulled a book out of Peter’s bookshelf and flipped through it before putting it back and wandering to the dresser, where he picked up Peter’s camera and hefted it. 

“Cool,” he said to himself, looking through the viewfinder. “Yo quiero  _ La Sangria Sabroso _ .”

Peter twisted in his chair until it started to spin slowly to the side. “One, we can’t just copy Taco Bell. Two, I don’t think Ms. Juarez wants us using alcohol in our restaurant name.”

“She’s not gonna care,” Wade said dismissively. He put the camera down, then picked up the stack of photos sitting next to it and started flipping through them, eyebrows raised. “ _ Nachos Crujientes _ son jodidamente deliciosos.”

Peter listened to the Spanish Wade had just rattled off. He hesitated, flipping through his book for a moment, then finally said, “So... ‘ _ Nachos Crujientes _ ’ is the restaurant?”

“Yep,” Wade said, having already moved on to fiddling with the little bits and pieces of various electronics also scattered over the top of the dresser.

“And...” Peter pulled out his phone and just googled it. He’d never heard that phrase before. “Jo-di-da-men-te de-li-ci-o-sos means...” He looked up from his phone a moment later to exclaim, “Wade! We can’t swear!”

Wade laughed, like he’d been waiting for Peter to figure it out. He strolled over to Peter’s bed, giving it a long look before flopping onto it, laying down and looking very comfortable. “You’re no fun,” he said, wiggling his shoulders a little to settle further into the pillow. “ _ Expreso Chimichanga: mi chimi es su chimi. _ ”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “Does ‘chimi’ mean something bad?”

“Nah,” Wade said, closing his eyes. “S’just fun to say.  _ Chimi-chimi-chimi-chimi-changa _ .”

Since Wade wasn’t looking anyway, Peter checked that, too. It wasn’t a swear word, and that was really all that mattered.

“Okay,” he said, writing it down. “We have to come up with a whole menu, but that shouldn’t be hard. Help me study for the final.”

Wade groaned, but when Peter flipped to the study page they’d been given in class, he dutifully translated the words Peter read out loud to him. 

After a few minutes, Peter tossed his notebook at Wade, then set himself to spinning in his chair again. “You already know all this, I don’t need to test you. You ask me some, now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wade said, though he didn’t pick up the notebook. He rolled over instead, cuddling Peter’s pillow like a teddy bear, and started listing off more Spanish words. Peter answered to the best of his ability, and took notes on the ones he couldn’t remember. 

Wade cracked an eye open the first time he heard Peter’s pen scratching on paper, and smiled. He always seemed to find amusement in Peter’s study habits, possibly because he’d never made any serious attempt at studying in his life. Or at least, Peter assumed.

“Okay, I don’t remember any other words,” Wade announced eventually. He pushed himself to his feet and started pacing around Peter’s room again. “Hablar?”

Peter twirled his pen between his fingers. “In what tense?”

“Present,” Wade said, picking up a tiny screwdriver and a bit of Peter’s old computer and started taking apart the CPU. Peter let him do it as they went back and forth, listing off verbs and reciting back the conjugations, since it would hardly hurt anything. 

“Vivir, preterito,” Wade said, and started humming to himself. Peter smiled when he recognized the song, and Wade began swaying as he set down the screwdriver and the various bits of Peter’s computer he’d been fiddling with. 

“Viví, viviste, vivió, vivimos, vivisteis, vivieron,” Peter said dutifully, but it seemed likely that Wade wasn’t paying attention anymore, as he was singing now.

“ _ Though I’ve tried before to tell him-- _ ” Wade executed a complicated little turn that put him right in front of Peter’s chair, and despite his eye rolling, when Wade scooped up his hand and tugged him to his feet, Peter let him. “-- _ of the feelings I have for him in my heart...” _

It took Peter longer than he cared to admit to realize that Wade was changing the pronouns, and that he was being waltzed around his bedroom with Wade’s hand at his waist as he serenaded him.

_ “Every time that I come near him, I just lose my nerve as I’ve done-- from the start... _ ”

Okay, so maybe-- Peter met Wade’s gaze as he spun them around, his smile growing distracted as he realized how intently Wade was looking at him-- maybe MJ and Wanda really,  _ really _ had a point.

“ _ Every little thing he does is magic, everything he do just turns me on, _ ” Wade sang, and Peter let it happen, let himself drape his arms over Wade’s shoulders and step in on a turn, Wade’s arms looping around him and holding him close.

“ _ Even though my life before was tragic, _ ” Wade continued, but slower now, like he’d forgotten he was singing at all. 

Peter was pretty sure Wade was the one who leaned in first, but it didn’t really matter. At this point, Peter would have done it if Wade had hesitated any longer. They stood in the middle of his bedroom, kissing slowly for longer than he could really define. When they did eventually part, Wade blinked at Peter, apparently speechless, his arms still wrapped around his waist. 

“You okay?” Peter asked, after long enough that it was weird that neither of them had said anything. “Was... that okay?”

“I didn’t think it was actually gonna work,” Wade managed, finally, still looking a little dumbstruck. “We just-- dude, holy shit.”

Peter’s forehead furrowed. “Did you not--”

“No! No, we did it, it happened,” Wade said hastily, his hold tightening somewhat. “No take-backsies. In fact, we should do it again. And-- and--”

“Date?” Peter suggested, when it seemed like Wade was at another loss for words. 

“Sure, since you brought it up,” Wade said, leaning in and pressing another kiss to the corner of Peter’s mouth. Peter turned his head to catch him before he pulled away, and that was how they passed the time until Peter heard the sound of a door closing downstairs and realized Aunt May had arrived home from work.

“Uh... hey,” he said breathlessly, sliding his hands over Wade’s broad shoulders and pushing lightly to get his attention. Wade had, at some point, crowded him up against his desk, and Peter was sitting on top of it, his head tipped back enough for Wade to kiss his neck. “Wade, you have to-- we have to go downstairs.”

“M’busy,” Wade mumbled, then kissed Peter on the mouth in what he suspected was a bid to both silence and sidetrack his concerns. It worked until Aunt May called Peter’s name up the stairs, sounding curious enough that he worried she might actually come up soon if he didn’t respond. 

“I’m here, Aunt May!” he called, breaking away from the kiss and giving Wade a significant look. Wade still seemed remarkably unconcerned, one of his hands having found its way under Peter’s shirt to press against his lower back, his palm warm and distracting. “Wade. We have to go downstairs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wade sighed, stepping away with incredible reluctance. He took a longer look at Peter, then grinned. “Uh, you might wanna...”

“What?” Peter asked, though when Wade stepped forward and started fiddling with his hair, still looking like cat with canary, he got the general idea. “Just... find my glasses, I’ll--”

Aunt May called something else that Peter suspected might have to do with the extra pair of shoes by the front door, though he didn’t hear it all because Wade was snickering as he hunted around for them. “You’re such a loser,” Peter said, fixing his shirt from where he sat. “Come on, we have to hurry.”

“I’m looking, I’m looking,” Wade said, finally producing the glasses from a pile of clothes near the bed. He came back over and set them on Peter’s nose, his hands dropping to rest on his hips as Peter adjusted them and tried to flatten out his hair without a mirror. “So, am I getting kicked out, or do I get to meet your auntie?”

“You’re staying for dinner, Wade,” Peter said, rolling his eyes and pushing Wade to step back with one hand on his chest so he could stand up. “Keep it PG around my aunt, okay?”

“Whatever you say, baby boy,” Wade said, and Peter was glad he’d already turned toward his bedroom door, intending to duck into the bathroom and make sure Wade hadn’t left any visible hickeys. His cheeks were very red in the mirror.


	11. Chapter 11

**November 25th**

Wade turned out to be a very attentive boyfriend. Mostly, this meant he liked to walk Peter to class and tug him into quiet corners to kiss him when no one was looking. On days when Peter didn’t have something going on after school, Wade walked him home, and they’d avoid the subway and take the long route back to Queens, sticking to the nicer parts of town and discovering new little patches of greenspace and the High Line together. 

Peter would often order them a pizza from somewhere on the way and watch Wade spoil his dinner eating most of it before they ever reached the bridge. Eddie’s became their go-to after a week or so. After that, it felt alright that Wade didn’t often stay at Peter’s house for dinner, though sometimes he was able to talk him into it. 

Wade had two moods in that regard: either he had to get home before five or he wanted to stay out til well after it was safe to be out alone. Peter worried about Wade wandering around the city by himself on the nights he stayed, and it became a strange source of arguments, because Peter didn’t understand  _ why _ . 

He thought at first that it might be that Wade wanted to avoid seeing Aunt May, and Peter was very ready to be bothered about it. But it didn’t make sense. When they did interact, Aunt May was perfectly pleasant, and Wade seemed to think she was great. He asked after her sometimes, if he hadn’t seen her in a few days. So that couldn’t be it.

Then, he started to wonder if it was something to do with all the brawling he still managed to do at school. Peter had a moment, right before Wade left one afternoon, when he wanted to demand to know if Wade was in some sort of fight club.

The question arose again when Peter leaned into Wade’s side more roughly than usual as the subway jerked them around, and Peter caught him flinching. 

“Sorry-- are you okay?” he asked, watching Wade favor the spot and brace himself more firmly against the railing. There weren’t many other people on the subway with them, so he crowded closer to Wade and slid his hands under his shirt. Wade wasn’t quick enough to stop him from pushing it up just enough to see the dark discoloration of the skin in a strange shape on the spot he’d bumped. 

“Holy shit, Wade,” he said, letting him tug his shirt back down with no resistance, looking up to catch his eye. “Who  _ did _ that? What happened?”

“I dunno,” Wade said with a shrug. “Probably from the other day with Masters. He’s a real jackass. Thinks he’s some kind of jiujitsu mastermind but didn’t expect me to punch him in the dick.”

“Why would you--” Peter began, wincing in sympathy for the admittedly douchey Tony Masters. 

“Cause he didn’t expect me to,” Wade explained, and Peter leaned into him again, more carefully this time. 

“That’s messed up,” he said, one hand gently sliding up Wade’s back, waiting to see if he flinched again. “But... Masters didn’t  _ stomp  _ on you. Someone would’ve mentioned it to me.”

People did like to tell him all about Wade’s fights, as though hearing enough about them would make him change his mind about spending time with Wade. 

It... didn’t help, and that was something that bothered him too. He didn’t like it when Wade fought. It bothered him a lot, in fact. But he hadn’t  _ asked _ him to stop fighting. He’d asked him to stop bullying. It was... it was a compromise. Peter could tell that it did something for Wade, loosened him up after, even if he did end up with a bloody lip or a black eye. 

Maybe eventually, after they’d been together a while, Peter might feel more like he could ask Wade not to do things like that anymore. Maybe he’d ask about the potential fight club, too. Right now, it felt like overstepping. There were people out there who tried to control their boyfriend’s lives, and Peter didn’t want to be one of them. 

But it was just... hard, to see him all bruised up and damaged like this. 

Wade didn’t explain the bruise on his torso. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders and rested his chin on his head for the rest of the ride, and Peter stewed in his uncertainty, not quite able to work out how to open his mouth and ask the questions he wanted to ask.

It wasn’t until they were climbing the steps out onto the street that Peter worked out a way to cap off that conversation, and the subtle tension that had followed them up the stairs. 

“Listen,” he said. Wade’s head turned toward him expectantly. Peter squeezed his hand, and frowned to himself. “I know you don’t want to say. But... If you ever need anything, you have my phone number. And you know where I live. I don’t care what it is, okay? Or what time it is.”

Wade didn’t answer at first, then dropped Peter’s hand, only to slide an arm around his shoulders and pull him close as they walked. “You’re a real sweetheart, Pete. Thanks.”

After that, he almost immediately launched into an explanation of the plot of Halo, and they leaned into each other comfortably for the rest of the walk home.

\------

**26 November**

Wade didn’t usually enjoy school breaks. It meant he generally had nothing to do to get away from the apartment unless he wanted to wander the streets or go see a friend. 

The nice thing was that, while May had forbidden them from being alone in Peter’s bedroom with the door closed, she didn’t actually mind Wade hanging out at their house all day, even when she still had to work. It seemed like the implication of the ‘no closed doors’ rule was actually enough to keep Peter from misbehaving, which was a real shame. Wade wanted nothing more than to spend some of those hours they had all to themselves getting Peter naked and fulfilling some of the many and extremely varied fantasies he came up with in class or at lunch or at home, in his room, or in the shower, or, or, or...

Peter seemed content to just kiss Wade for the time being. And talk. Wade wasn’t complaining. He loved talking. He could talk forever, and it turned out that Peter could too, and he didn’t mind Wade interjecting his own ideas one bit. They could just chatter at each other for hours. Sometimes, Wade would plan out a whole day, how he’d sneakily convince Peter to go upstairs for some reason and slowly seduce him into forgetting about being appropriate or whatever it was that was holding him back, and get him out of all that unnecessary clothing. 

And then Peter would get him talking about something, anything at all, and they’d disagree, and Peter would interrupt and then Wade would interrupt and they’d get so far off track they’d forget what they’d even started arguing about, and start a whole new argument, and at some point they’d get something to eat, and the argument would change into shouting their agreement about some ridiculous thing or another, and all of sudden May would be home, and Wade’s window of opportunity would have passed, and it’d nearly be time to go home. 

It happened often enough that Wade started to wonder if Peter had sussed out his plan, and was sneakily subverting him somehow. Though he had to admit that it was entirely possible that they were just like this. He sort of liked it. 

Not that that was going to make him drop his plan. He’d pull it off one of these days. Pun intended.

So Thanksgiving break wasn’t so bad, because he spent most of it with Peter. Sometimes, he’d stay for dinner too, which was nice, but it always made him twitchy and jumpy, even before he left the Parker residence. He didn’t like it when his dad got home first. It meant Wade had no idea what he’d be walking into, when he got there. 

If he got home first, he could plan ahead, be in his room, hidden away, lights off. Hide in the closet if he heard his dad coming down the hall, so he’d think Wade was still out and leave his bedroom alone. He could have some time to relax on his own. 

If his dad got home first, there was no telling what would happen. 

Tonight, for example. He’d stayed for both dinner  _ and _ dessert, and it was past seven before he even got off the subway at the stop near his place. 

He walked slower as he approached the apartment building, and eyed up the fire escape, debating whether it’d be worth it to go in that way. On the one hand, if he made it, it’d be a relief. On the other, if he fell... well. He’d be fucked. And it was drizzling, so it was a little slippery out today.

Grudgingly, Wade went inside and climbed the steps to his floor, pausing outside their apartment door to listen. It was quiet inside. That could mean a few things, but Wade couldn’t just hover out here all night. He unlocked the door and eased it open as quietly as possible, coming into the unlit living room and shutting it just as gently. 

“What time is it?”

Wade had been facing the door, which was good, because his face betrayed his surprise at being caught. The living room had looked pretty empty. He turned around and realized that his dad was in his easy chair, slumped so thoroughly that he blended right in, in the low light from the kitchen.

“Seven thirty, sir,” Wade said, toeing off his shoes and trying to act natural. Tom huffed. 

“C’mere.”

The order was given in a tone Wade recognized, and he hesitated very briefly before sighing silently and stepping around the couch to sit, facing his dad. 

Tom’s eyes were glazed, the dull, icy blue one of Wade’s least favorite colors, but he sat and looked anyway. So tonight would be one of these nights. 

They sat in silence for several minutes, just staring at each other. It didn’t  _ sound _ like a long time, but two hundred and forty seconds felt like an eternity when you couldn’t talk, you couldn’t change your expression from a bland, expectant mask, and you couldn’t look away. 

Wade had found over the years that these...  _ staring contests _ , because that’s ultimately what they ended up being most of the time, didn’t work if he didn’t make eye contact. Tom considered looking down or away a sign of inattention, boredom, and ultimately, disrespect. That would set him off just as easily as if Wade had gotten up and left, or told him to go fuck himself.

“You’re my kid,” Tom said eventually, taking a drink. 

“Yes, sir,” Wade said, his shoulders rolled forward, his head bowed slightly, his eye contact unwavering. 

Looking for that long into someone’s eyes was supposed to mean something. Wade had seen youtube videos about it. You stare into someone’s eyes, you’re staring into their soul. It was supposed to be a thing couples did, to make them feel closer to each other. 

Tom’s soul was hidden by a patina of alcohol. Wade felt like he was looking at a blank wall when he had to do this, half the time. It was still a test of his willpower. This much eye contact made him deeply uncomfortable, no matter how listless the returning gaze was.

Another painful pause. Wade tucked his hands between his knees, so his fingers could twitch and tap where Tom couldn’t see. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure a quiet night was worth this. There were nights when he came home, found Tom in this mood, and went right back out the door. Wade wasn’t sure what made him decide, most times. He liked to think he’d stay on nights when he was tired, and just wanted to sleep in his own bed eventually, but the reality of it was that this, right now, these long gaps between words, this unbearable staring, this was far more exhausting than having nowhere to go and trying to sleep on a bench with one ear open for footsteps.

“I care about you, you know that?” Wade didn’t answer immediately, and Tom prompted him, his voice just a hair sharper than before. “Hey. You know that?”

“Yes, sir, I know,” Wade agreed, then bit his tongue through the next pause. It was shorter this time.

“Gonna send you to college,” Tom promised. Wade nodded, his teeth a sharp, even pressure over the flat edges of his tongue. It was starting to really hurt, but he didn’t stop. “If you just stopped bein’ such a goddamn fuck up, you could be something.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Wade said, his face impassive even as his fingernails dug into the denim of his jeans between his knees, and that hurt, too. It helped to keep him grounded, to keep him from leaping out of his seat and throwing something sharp at Tom’s head. Briefly, he imagined finding a knife in the kitchen and slitting Tom’s throat. The blood would spurt everywhere. Tom’s neck would gape, all red inside, blood and muscle and gore, and Wade would do it again, til he could see bone.

“Your mother would’ve wanted you to be something,” Tom said, after staring dully at Wade for long enough that Wade started to wonder if he’d even heard his response. 

This topic shift very nearly made Wade stand up and leave, but it was wet outside, and the landlord would find him if he tried to sleep in the hall. He’d been yelled at about it, already. Instead, he pictured caving in Tom’s skull with a sledgehammer. The blood and viscera would explode out in a violent spatter across the living room walls.

_ ‘Punch me in the face,’ _ Wade thought, but didn’t say. 

“I know, sir.”

_ ‘Hit me and let me go to my fucking room,’  _ he thought, as loudly as he could, but he couldn’t force himself to do the things he knew could make that happen. He was, ultimately, too much of a chickenshit to really stand up to Tom, too certain that he’d lose, and not willing to gamble on how badly. 

He loved living in New York. He wanted to stay here. 

“I miss your mother,” Tom said, and Wade could taste copper in his mouth when he responded.

“Me too, sir.”

\------

**November 28th**

Peter had never empathized so much with people who hated the holidays. Normally, Halloween rolled around and he was looking forward to the next few months of days off school and big, elaborate meals, and family traditions. 

But Thanksgiving was going to be the first real holiday he and Aunt May would spend without Uncle Ben. It felt like something sharp was caught in Peter’s throat when he thought about it. They didn’t have any other family left; Peter’s parents had died when he was eight, and Aunt May had been an only child. Sometimes, they went to the synagogue for certain holidays, even the non-Jewish ones like Thanksgiving, but this year was not that kind of year.

They set out an extra plate at Uncle Ben’s usual spot. Neither of them commented on it, and ate their tiny turkey dinners with muted conversation, though they were interrupted twice, once by a neighbor who’d brought over some dessert, and then by a friend of Aunt May’s, dropping by to see how they were doing. 

After dinner, they cleaned up together, and then rather than spend the night talking and reminiscing like they might have on a normal holiday, they sat together on the couch and watched old tv shows on Netflix.

It wasn’t the worst thing ever. Neither of them cried, although Peter had his suspicions when Aunt May excused herself around nine pm to go to bed. 

Peter didn’t stay up much longer after that, at a loss for what to do with all the quiet. He stood in the middle of his room, unsure of what he wanted, if anything at all. He ended up shutting off his light and laying down, staring up at the ceiling and the squares of light from the streetlamp that shone there, in the same spot they always had.    
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. He couldn’t just lay here in silence all night. He had to do-- something. He got up and paced his room in the dark, walking over to his computer and abandoning the idea before he’d even sat down. He turned and looked at his bookbag, but that, too, held no appeal. He had a feeling he’d drop his camera if he tried to use it right now, and it’d been expensive. It’d been a gift from Uncle Ben.

Peter turned around, exhaling heavily, his hands rough in his own hair. Uncle Ben wouldn’t mind that it hadn’t been an awful Thanksgiving, he reminded himself forcefully. In truth, it’d barely felt like Thanksgiving at all. It’d just felt like a dinner. It’d felt like a normal night with some painful reminders. So, every night.

But Ben wouldn’t mind that they were-- that they were-- They weren’t  _ moving on _ . That’s not what this was. They couldn’t. Peter couldn’t. It was just a quiet night. Just because everything had been calm didn’t mean they were bad people for-- it wasn’t like they’d forgotten about him. They wouldn’t. If they had forgotten him, maybe it would’ve felt more like-- but no, he couldn’t even think that.

Peter had just dropped to his knees and was preparing to crawl under his bed when a noise at his window scared him nearly out of his skin. He looked up and covered a genuine shout of fright with his hand when he saw a human figure shadowed there, and it took longer than it should have for the silhouette to become recognizable. 

He pushed open the window with shaky hands, and Wade climbed in, careful not to step on Peter’s blankets in his shoes.

“Hey, baby boy,” he said, and Peter would’ve noticed the tremor in Wade’s voice more clearly if he hadn’t been so out of sorts, himself. “Sorry for droppin’ by unannounced. Lost my phone at home.”

“Hi, Wade, it’s okay,” Peter said, his voice mechanical. Wade looked at him with concern, squinting in the dark of the room. 

“You okay, Pete?” he asked, putting gentle hands on Peter’s shoulders, only to find him shivering. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He hesitated and looked around the dark, quiet room, nonplussed. “What happened? Where’s your aunt?”

“She’s in her room,” Peter said. “She’s fine. Don’t wake her up.”

Wade frowned at him and steered him to sit on the bed. “You’re the one that’s not fine,” he pointed out. “What happened?”

“I’m fine, I’m- I’m--” He looked at Wade, who was just listening patiently, his face in shadow. “Why are you here?”

“Just wanted to come see you, beautiful,” Wade responded without missing a beat, toeing his shoes off even as he rubbed Peter’s hands between his own large palms, trying to warm them. “Breath slow now, okay? You gotta slow it down.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Peter said again, as though that might make it true this time. “I was just gonna-- I’ll feel better if I--” He gestured, feeling his cheeks flush with shame, but he couldn’t shake the desire to crawl under his bed. He knew it was stupid and childish, but it helped, and he wasn’t in a position to ignore that.

Wade glanced at the empty space underneath Peter’s bed, and after a long moment, asked, “Would it be okay if I come, too?”

“What?” Peter asked, startled. 

“I mean, would it make it worse,” Wade asked. “If I was under there with you? Or would it help?”

Peter honestly had no idea. “We could... try it,” he offered, and Wade squeezed his hands, then gathered up Peter’s blankets and kicked his own shoes out of the way. Peter watched, mystified, as Wade laid his comforter and his pillows out on the floor next to the bed, then laid down on them on his side and gestured for Peter to join him. 

“This isn’t-- uh, under the bed,” Peter pointed out, laying down anyway and crowding up against Wade. It was kind of nice, having him there. Peter felt a little less like the world was ending. 

And then Wade held onto the blankets by tucking them under his arm, and used a combination of pulling, dragging, and shimmying to slide them both under the bed in an unexpectedly graceful twenty seconds. Peter didn’t even have to do anything, and now he was... he reached out and tugged the rest of the blankets under with them, bunching them up to block the way in until they were enclosed almost completely. No one could sneak up on them now. 

Not that they would. But they couldn’t. 

Wade had to lay on his back, and while there wasn’t much room under the bed (and that was part of the draw, really), Peter managed to lay his head on the same pillow and rest his forehead against Wade’s shoulder, essentially hugging his arm, their fingers linked together. Wade’s other hand covered Peter’s shoulder, and his thumb rubbed a slow circle there that Peter focused on intently. 

“This okay?” Wade asked, after a while, and it really, really was. Wade’s breathing was slow and steady, his body solid and warm, and Peter felt safe. He hummed an affirmative and felt Wade squeeze his fingers, and felt like he might actually be able to sleep, tonight. 


	12. Chapter 12

**November 29th**

Peter woke early the next morning, with the familiar dull pain in his shoulder that always followed a night on the floor under his bed. Today was different though. Today, Wade was under here with him, and instead of feeling like he might just ignore his own discomfort and stay there til Aunt May coaxed him out, Peter thought he’d be ready to go down to breakfast at the normal time, though he wasn’t sure how he’d explain Wade’s presence. Maybe he could go out the window and knock on the door when the time came. 

The sense that he shouldn’t be happy, that he shouldn’t just forget about Uncle Ben, that hadn’t gone away. But the panic that usually followed when he was hit with it as intensely as he’d been last night wasn’t there anymore. Peter was able to sit with the feelings the way he usually did.

Wade was still asleep, and Peter watched him in the steadily building light, until something about his face looked... wrong. 

“Wade,” Peter said, softly, staring at his cheek. He glanced over his shoulder, then reached out and pushed the blankets out of the way, to let more light in. Sure enough, that was blood. And bruising. “Wade!”

Wade opened his eyes slowly, and now that Peter could actually see him in the light of day, he could tell he had a black eye, too.

“Wade!” Peter hissed, putting a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and Wade’s flinch reminded him of all the other times he’d had the same reaction to being touched, and Peter had discovered bruises which he’d then shrugged off. He rolled his head to one side to look at him, concerned despite his own obvious injuries, and found Peter glaring.

“What?” he asked, suddenly looking more awake. “You okay?”

“ _ I’m _ fine,” Peter said, then gestured at Wade, the movement truncated in the small space. “What happened to  _ you _ ?”

Wade’s mouth twisted into an uncertain shape. “Well, you  _ said _ I could come here if I needed to,” he pointed out, his eyes cutting away. He turned his head to stare up at the underside of Peter’s bed. 

“Come out here,” Peter said, and when Wade gave him a funny look, Peter started scooting backward until he was out from under the bed, where he waited. “Wade, come on, please?”

Peter heard Wade sigh, and then he was dragging himself out from under Peter’s bed, his expression ill tempered and pained. Peter wondered suddenly how much it had hurt last night, to get them both under there. 

“What happened?” Peter asked, unzipping Wade’s hoodie and gently pulling it aside. Wade helped him get it off, and, with a resigned grumble, let Peter pull his t-shirt up enough to find bruises in the shape of handprints. There was another, larger bruise on his collarbone. Peter pictured the position they’d slept in last night, and felt a surge of guilt. “Did I make this worse, with--?”

“No, definitely not,” Wade said, watching Peter’s hand ghost over the darkened patches of skin, not quite touching. “I liked it under your bed with you.” He gave Peter a little smile, which at least looked genuine. “It was comfy. Don’t worry, Petey.”

“Who did this?” Peter asked next, his eyes dropping to stare at Wade’s torso. “Wade, what were you  _ doing _ last night?”

“I get banged up all the time, Pete,” Wade tried, pulling his hoodie back into place. “It’s not a big deal, you’ve seen how it is--”

“This is  _ not _ how it usually looks when you get in a fight,” Peter snapped, upset that he even  _ knew _ what that looked like. “And who are you even fighting with? You’re not out looking for people to get beat up by, are you?”

“Uh, pretty sure I’d beat them up,” Wade said flippantly, but Peter wasn’t in the mood. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” he said, gesturing to Wade’s face and torso. “Looks like someone stepped on you. And grabbed you. And--”

Wade looked a lot more uncomfortable all of a sudden. “I know what it looks like.”

“Why, then?” Peter asked, feeling abruptly miserable. “Why do you have to go out and find ways to get yourself hurt? Can’t you just... not be hurt? You don’t always  _ have _ to be covered in bruises and bleeding  _ all the time _ , Wade. One of these days it could go a whole lot worse than this. Don’t you  _ get _ that? Do you not care?”

“It’s not like that, Pete,” Wade said, looking down at the floor through his crossed legs. “I promise I’m not out looking for fights.”

“So last night, then,” he pointed out, eyebrows raised. “Where’d you find a fight if you weren’t looking for it?”

Wade sat there in silence, his shoulders hunched, eyes fixed firmly on the carpet. Peter felt himself growing impatient, and had to restrain himself from opening his mouth to demand an answer. Silence did more sometimes than talking. Aunt May did that to him all the time. If she waited long enough, he’d end up giving up everything. 

Finally, after what felt like minutes and minutes of just sitting there in silence, Wade muttered something. Peter’s forehead furrowed. 

“Your what?” he asked, and Wade shrugged in a jerky motion, not otherwise moving. 

“My dad,” he said, barely audibly. Peter blinked at him, trying to work out this piece of the puzzle, and then his heart dropped when he realized what it meant. 

“He did--” Peter stopped himself when Wade nodded, feeling absolutely  _ awful _ for some of the things he’d said in the last ten minutes. “Shit. Wade, I’m  _ sorry _ .”

“Don’t do that,” Wade said, scowling at his knees. “I don’t wanna hear shit like that.”

“No, I meant... sorry for yelling at you,” Peter said in a quiet voice. He had no real idea of what he was supposed to say, now. Every time he’d learned something new about Wade’s father, it’d been worse than the last, and now this seemed to take the cake. 

Wade peeked up at him from under his hair, dried blood flaking off his cheek. Peter slid himself around and leaned back against the bed next to him, on his uninjured side, close enough that he could feel Wade’s body heat. He took a deep breath, his eyes wandering over the blankets and pillows on the floor around them, mind racing.

“We should probably talk to--”

“You can’t tell anyone.” Wade’s voice was sharp and sudden, louder than they’d been speaking so far. Peter’s head came up in surprise. “I didn’t tell you so you can just start blabbing it around, Peter.”

“Wade, he’s  _ hurting you _ ,” Peter said, trying to sound logical and not like he was about ready to cry. “I can’t just... know this and not do anything about it, don’t you want it to stop?”

Wade shrugged, shifting and putting a distressing amount of distance between himself and Peter as he slid away, closer to the other end of the bed. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. You didn’t  _ have _ to know about it.”

“Yeah, but now I do.” Peter sat up on his knees and reached for Wade’s hand, biting down on the inside of his cheek when he pulled away. 

“And you gotta keep it to yourself,” Wade said firmly. “Or else I’ll be gone, Pete.” When Peter’s eyes widened, he nodded and continued, his words implacable. “That’s how it always works. We get a visit from child welfare, we’re a hundred miles away the next day. One time my principal called my dad in just to ask him how I hurt my arm, and we moved that fucking night. Just packed the car fulla all the shit we could fit in it and drove away.”

Peter wrapped his arms tight around his knees and dropped his chin to rest there, trying to stay calm about what Wade was telling him. He just sounded so... certain. Like there was no way out. Like this was just his life and really, it was, wasn’t it?

“You really think he’d just pick up and leave?” Peter asked, and Wade nodded again.

“I know he would,” he said, conceding somewhat by sliding his socked foot over and nudging Peter’s with it. When Peter looked up, Wade’s face was pinched, his mouth a thin line. “I’d be somewhere else after break. And I like it here. I like you a lot. I wanna keep hanging around, you know?”

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice was barely audible. He  _ hated _ what Wade was saying, and how very certain he was of it. He hated that it felt like there was literally nothing he could do. 

“Just leave it alone, baby boy, okay? I’m fine.” Wade’s face was trying to have a smile on it, but it looked more like he was baring his teeth. Peter hated that, too. 

He wanted absolutely nothing more than to  _ not _ leave it alone, but if what Wade was saying was true, then all he’d be accomplishing would be to lose him, and to send him away somewhere else, where he wouldn’t know anyone and wouldn’t have anyone to buy him lunch and worry about his bruises and walk home after school and kiss him.

Aunt May knocked on his door, nearly scaring Peter out of his skin with the reminder that they weren’t alone. Wade stared at him, wide eyed, and Peter thought, ‘ _ This is it, she’ll walk in and see him and know what to do, she’ll help him, and he won’t have to go--’ _

“Peter, breakfast in ten, okay?”

Peter stared back at Wade, part of him frozen, waiting for Aunt May to open the door. But the worry on Wade’s face was too much. He was looking at the bed like he might try to climb under it again at any second, and what if Aunt May  _ couldn’t _ fix it? What if it didn’t change anything?

“Okay, I’ll be down in a minute,” Peter called back, watching Wade’s shoulders relax and hating himself a little. 

“I should, uh, get outta your hair,” Wade said, gesturing halfheartedly toward the window. Peter shook his head and pushed himself up to his feet. 

“No, you should stay,” he said, walking backward toward the door, each step measured and slow. “I’ll get you a towel to clean yourself up and you can... go out the window and knock on the front door. She’d believe you just got in a fight.”

Wade stood up too, and it didn’t really look like he had as much faith in Aunt May’s gullibility as Peter was claiming to. “I don’t know, Pete...”

“Or... or, you could just stay up here.” Peter looked around the room for something to offer Wade that would keep his interest, convince him to stay. “I’ll bring you up some food, you can... you can relax and you don’t have to--”

“You really want your aunt finding me here and realizing I spent the night?” Wade asked, shaking his head ruefully. “Don’t worry, Pete, I’m just fine.”

“No, you’re  _ not _ ,” Peter said, anguish bubbling up in his throat. Wade took a look at him, then came forward and wrapped his arms around Peter in a tight hug. It wasn’t right that he was the one doing the comforting right now; this was backward,  _ Peter _ should have been doing the hugging,  _ Wade  _ was the one who was being  _ hurt, _ who was currently  _ covered _ in bruises and had been  _ bleeding _ last night.

Peter hugged back anyway, holding onto Wade tight and turning his head to kiss his neck, just because it was what he could reach. He wanted to say something reassuring, like ‘ _ we’ll figure this out’,  _ or, ‘ _ I’m going to fix this for you,’ _ but he thought that would only worry Wade, make him think Peter was going to spill his secret. 

In reality, Peter had no idea what to do about it, anyway, so maybe it was best that he didn’t lie like that. He felt frozen, and he didn’t stop feeling that way even as Wade kissed him goodbye and went back out the window, waving once before dropping down out of sight and disappearing. 

Hopefully not to go home. 

\-----

**December 3rd**

The rest of Peter’s Thanksgiving break was... stressful, to say the least. 

He and Wade already texted often, but Peter was now constantly checking his phone, worrying that if Wade had not answered him in a while, did that mean something was happening? Was his dad hurting him? Where was he? Was he out wandering the streets, in danger in that way? Or was he at home, which was a new, never before considered and much worse danger? 

He hated worrying this much. He hated that Wade was so consistently at risk that he  _ needed _ to worry like this. He wanted to tell Aunt May that Wade needed to move in with them, impractical though that obviously was. He could sleep in Peter’s room, and Peter would sleep on the couch. He wouldn’t even mind. 

He woke up from a dream in the early hours of the morning on the Tuesday after they went back to school, barely able to breathe and half convinced that Wade was dead, still lying there as blood seeped out of him in a dark, menacing looking bedroom, all alone and abandoned because Peter had done nothing when he had the chance. He dropped his phone twice trying to unlock it, and had to call him three times before he answered, sitting through the endless ringing with all his muscles locked, convinced that he was too late.

Hearing Wade’s sleepy voice on the other end of the line made him collapse back onto the bed with a sigh, and he apologized for calling in a low, relieved voice.

“Butt dial,” he promised, and Wade hummed in understanding, still sounding half asleep and therefore not questioning the extremely dubious explanation.

“Booty call,” he mumbled back, and Peter forced a small laugh.

“Sorry again, Wade,” he whispered back. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmm, see ya t’morrow,” Wade agreed. Peter didn’t hang up, and just listened to Wade’s quiet breathing over the phone for a while, until he felt calm enough to start castigating himself for being the kind of boyfriend Wade was clearly going to have to  _ manage _ . Waking him up in the middle of the night and making all Wade’s problems about himself wasn’t good or helpful or useful. 

He just couldn’t stop thinking about Wade, dead on the floor in a pool of blood. It was shockingly similar to how Uncle Ben had looked, but then, that was what nightmares did. They took the worst parts of his thoughts and twisted them into something even worse, because Peter’s brain hated him.

It was just hard to stop thinking about it, now that he’d made the connection. Peter had been in that bodega when it was being robbed. He’d been frozen with fear until the man with the gun had left, and not five minutes later, his uncle was bleeding out on the street, because he’d come looking for Peter and had more guts and more conviction in his little finger that Peter could ever dream of having.

He’d watched YouTube obsessively in the couple months after that, over and over, videos of people jumping up behind armed men in gas stations and subway tunnels and tackling them to the ground, beating them over the head with purses and skateboards, saving everyone around them and occasionally causing their attacker to quail in fear and run. Peter could’ve done that. Why hadn’t he? He could have. He  _ should _ have. 

What was this if not a slow motion version of that? What if he failed? What if Wade got hurt because he tried? What if he got hurt because Peter  _ didn’t _ try? Which of those were the worse option? 

The easier choice was to stay paralysed and do nothing, and unfortunately, Peter had seen how that turned out before, up close. His nightmares about Uncle Ben came back that week, only now they were interspersed with more of Wade, bloody and bruised and staring lifelessly at Peter, his expression blank or, worse, lost. He imagined Wade demanding to know why Peter hadn’t helped him, and how could he just leave him there when he  _ knew _ what was happening to Wade. 

He spent more time with Wade at school that week, not at all concerned anymore that a teacher or Flash or even Tony might see them walking around holding hands, and have something to say. 

As a result, a lot more people started to notice that he and Wade were dating, and Peter was... well. Much less tolerant than ever before of their criticisms. He nearly punched Flash Thompson himself when he made a joke about Peter giving Wade his fading black eye. Wade had had to haul him away with an arm locked around his waist, he and Flash both sharing a spooked expression that Peter hardly noticed. 

MJ and Harry had long since been aware that Peter was dating Wade, since Wade had a tendency to sit too close at lunch and call Peter pet names entirely in lieu of his actual name when he was in the right mood. They were flatly unsurprised then, when Peter escalated this to hand holding and quick kisses before sitting down or standing up, or occasionally, breathing. They were possibly the only ones. Peter spent plenty of time defending Wade and their relationship at school, and it... helped a little, to give him something concrete that he could do for Wade, even if he hadn’t worked out how to  _ actually _ help him. 

\-----

**December 7th**

Peter had never before been told that a party was mandatory, but someone had called Aunt May and said Peter was trying to avoid Steve’s annual holiday party, and she’d hustled him upstairs to get dressed that night, totally unwilling to hear his objections.

“You have gone to this party every year since you were fourteen years old, young man,” May said, her voice brooking no argument. “And that Steve is a sweetheart. You always get home safe and if you’ve been drinking, I certainly can’t tell.”

“Aunt May, I don’t dri--”

“This party is  _ fun _ , and you  _ like going _ ,” she said, shoving him into his bedroom and beelining for his closet. He stood and watched helplessly as she sorted through his clothes and started pulling out shirts and jeans and sweaters, tossing them onto his bed.

“Aunt May!”

“Bring Wade with you, sweetie, I bet he’ll love it.” She turned to look at Peter over her shoulder. He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture which he hoped explained that these people either didn’t like or didn’t know Wade, and that he probably wouldn’t even want to come. She went back to picking through his clothes, then turned back to him and forced a small pile of them into his hands.

“You’re going,” she ordered. “You’ve been in a funk the last few days, and don’t you think I haven’t noticed. We’re not going to fall apart, Peter. We’re going to surround ourselves with our friends and let them help us, do you understand me?”

Her eyes were brighter than usual, so much so that Peter had to ask, “What are you doing tonight, then?”

“Well, I...” May blinked a few times, then seemed to realize she couldn’t very well push Peter and not herself, too. She patted her pockets until she found her phone. “I suppose I could... Evelyn did say I was welcome to drop by if I wanted to join her Bridge tournament.”

“Good,” Peter said. May paused, then held out her hand, which made him frown and look at it uncertainly. “What?”

“Your phone please, young man.”

Peter hesitated, but she looked suddenly very serious, and it left him worrying that he’d done something wrong and had forgotten about it. He handed his phone over, and she scrolled through it for a moment. It took her actually putting it to her ear for Peter to realize she was calling someone. 

“Wade, sweetie, this is Peter’s aunt,” she said, smiling at whatever Wade had said. “Oh no, don’t worry. I just wanted to ask if you could take Peter to this party tonight. Oh, you hadn’t heard about it? Well, let me just fill you in...”

\-----

So it was that Wade and Peter showed up at Steve’s house less than an hour later, Wade in the ugliest Christmas sweater Peter had ever seen in his  _ life _ , an arm around Peter’s waist and looking around with extreme interest.

Bruce spotted them almost immediately. Peter made accidental eye contact with him across the room, and he looked flabbergasted to see Wade standing so close next to him. Peter glared back, and Bruce hesitated, giving Wade a chance to spot the Christmas tree and drag them over to see if those were real cranberry garlands draped over the branches. 

At least he hadn’t come over and started a fist fight. If this was how the rest of the night was going to go, Peter wanted to leave. 

“Holy shit, this place is fancy,” Wade said, looking around Steve’s parents’ townhouse. He’d said that about Peter’s house, too. It really, really wasn’t. It wasn’t shabby by any means, but Steve’s family didn’t even own a TV. 

It was admittedly beautifully decorated, just like every year, in a kind of cozy, old-fashioned way only Depression-era grandparents still knew how to pull off. Those really were cranberries, for instance, interspersed with popcorn garlands and little twinkling lights. There was even a little menorah full of unlit candles on one of the tables just like last year, probably specifically for Peter’s sake. He smiled at it and tugged Wade through the living room, giving him the short tour of the rest of the house and introducing him to people he didn’t know.

“So this is the Wade you always talk about,” Natasha said, leaning into Steve’s side with a glass of something dark red in her hand as Peter introduced them all. 

“Ooh, do you talk about me to people, baby boy?” Wade asked, grinning. “Scandalous. What will your boyfriend say?”

“I can say for sure that I’ve never heard about you,” Steve told him, glancing at Peter with a raised eyebrow. “Although that might be because Peter’s terrible at keeping in touch.”

“I am... not,” Peter said, trailing off sheepishly when he realized he probably hadn’t spoken to Steve since... well, the funeral, probably. A lot had happened. Peter was allowed to fail a little at being social, his therapist had said so. “Well, anyway, Wade’s my boyfriend, don’t let him fool you. He just thinks it’d be fun to be the other man.”

“Peter would never cheat on anybody,” Steve said, giving them both an amused smile, then catching someone else’s eye over Peter’s shoulder and gesturing for them to come over. “Don’t let him slander you like that, Pete.”

“Who’s slandering Pete? How dare they?” Bucky asked moments later, joining them by leaning into Steve’s other side and giving him a kiss. Wade’s eyes narrowed, clearly confused. 

“Wade is,” Steve said, gesturing to him. “Wade is Peter’s new boyfriend, and Bucky’s my old one.” He directed this last part at Wade, arm still around Natasha, who had a small smirk playing around her mouth as she watched Wade.

“It’s a poly thing,” she said to him in an aside, and Bucky glanced at her with a small frown before seeming to twig to what she was saying. 

“Yep,” he agreed, grinning broadly. “Nice to meet you, Wade. You better take care of Petey.” Steve had not followed this at all, and slid his arm around Bucky’s waist, too, nodding along with his words. Wade’s eyes had gone wide with fascination, and Peter basically  _ had _ to spoil it for him, because he  _ would _ say something weird and scandalize Steve.

“You guys, don’t mess with him,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Wade, Steve’s only dating Bucky. Nat’s just a friend.”

“Oh, boo,” Nat said immediately.

“C’mon, Pete, you’re no fun” Bucky agreed at the same time, even as Steve’s eyebrows shot up.

“You two are something else,” Steve said, though he didn’t seem overly bothered. On the contrary, he looked like he was holding back laughter. “Can’t take you anywhere. Sorry about them, Wade.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Wade said. He seemed even more impressed with them now than he had been before. “Nat, you’re the... uh-- self defense instructor, right?” Peter could  _ hear _ him mentally editing out the ‘sexy’ he usually put before that. 

“That’s right,” Nat said. “Good to know I earned a mention.”

“Yeah, we’ve talked about you a few times,” Wade said easily. “Petey says I should take your class when you open it up.”

Natasha looked more interested now than she had a moment ago. “Oh, really? Do you have much experience in self defense, Wade?”

He and Nat got to talking about her class, with Peter interjecting occasionally to explain or suggest. Steve and Bucky said their goodbyes and wandered off to play hosts. This was... turning out a lot better than Peter had imagined, earlier today. 

When Peter left them alone to go get drinks, he ran into Bruce again, who was with Tony. Peter hadn’t realized Tony was even here, given that he and Steve hadn’t been on speaking terms last time he checked.

“We made up,” Tony said, before Peter had a chance to even ask. “Talked it out. You know how Steve is. Hates to fight around Christmas.”

“Yeah, that tracks,” Peter agreed, pouring Nat another glass of her wine. Steve’s holiday parties had never exactly been wild keggers, Aunt May was right about that much. His mother and grandma were around here somewhere. “I’m glad you guys worked it out.”

“Me, too,” Tony said. He took a sip of his drink, and looked out at the rest of the party, from where they stood by the drinks table near the stairs. “Brought Wilson with you, huh?”

Peter’s eyes cut sharply over to Tony, but he was still surveying the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder, just in case Wade was within Tony’s eyeline, but he was nowhere to be found. 

“Well,” Peter said anyway. “We’re dating, so.”

Tony glanced at Peter, then sighed and set his glass down. “I’m not trying to be an asshole about this, Peter.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Peter responded, and Tony cut him off.

“No, really, I’m not. It just  _ looks _ like such a... horrible life choice. You’re better than--”

“Don’t you dare say I’m better than him, like there’s something wrong with him,” Peter said, hackles up instantly. Tony was about a second from having a drink thrown in his face, and it was clear he had no idea.

“Well--”

“What’s this?” Nat asked, stepping up next to Peter and scooping her wine glass neatly out of his hand. “Is this an argument I’m seeing, boys? You know better. Not at Steve’s big party.”

“I’m just telling Peter he needs to know his worth,” Tony said with a frustrated glance around the room. His eyes landed on something and he looked relieved. Peter followed his gaze and saw Bruce heading over. Great. Reinforcements.

“Where’s Wade?” he asked Nat, half expecting him to pop up right behind Bruce. 

“I think he said bathroom. He also seemed like he wanted to snoop around, so I didn’t bother showing him where it was,” she said, shrugging.

“That was a bad idea,” Tony said, frowning. “Knowing that guy, he’s probably gonna steal--”

“Tony,  _ shut up, _ ” Peter said, raising his voice unintentionally. “You don’t know what you’re _ talking _ about, okay?”

“Peter,” Nat said, her voice sharp. “What did I  _ just _ say about fighting at Steve’s party?”

“It’s-- I know, but...” Peter gestured helplessly to Tony, who looked nearly as ready to start shouting as Peter did. Nat glanced at Tony, then back at Peter. 

“Wade’s got a bad reputation,” Natasha said, raising her eyebrows at Peter as though asking him to confirm this. Peter nodded unwillingly.

“Yeah, he does, and with good reason, too,” Tony said. Nat gave him a speaking glance that said, ‘ _ Shut up.’ _ Tony did.

“I’m assuming you know all about it, Peter,” she continued. Peter nodded, scowling. “And yet here you are. Why? Explain it to me and Tony.”   
Bruce arrived just in time to hear her, and stood watching Peter too, obviously interested to hear this.

Peter looked between the three of them, uncertain of how to begin. He didn’t have any interest in telling Wade’s secrets to his friends, and especially not to Tony or Bruce, both of whom had made it incredibly clear that they didn’t like Wade at all. Wade hadn’t even wanted to tell  _ Peter _ his business. 

But he had to say something. He didn’t  _ want _ his friends to hate Wade. He wanted them to understand, if only a little bit. 

Nat was really his best bet, there. He looked at her, and she lifted an eyebrow at him. 

“He had... you were right, about the shit thing,” he said, stumbling over his words. He didn’t want to give away too much, but he thought this might be okay. He glanced at Tony and Bruce, too, including them in the conversation. “He really does mean it when he says he’s changed. He-- when he lied about it before... I know why he did that. We talked about it. Things have-- they’ve changed since then, and he has too. And I trust him. And it’s not anyone else’s business why, because you should just believe me when I say you’d trust him too, if you knew what was going on. I’m not an idiot and I’m not... making stupid decisions because I’m-- tramatized or something. Aunt May knows him and she really likes him too.”

_ So there _ , he didn’t say, falling silent instead. Natasha hummed thoughtfully, and interrupted Tony when he seemed like he was about to speak.

“We accept this,” she said. Tony looked at her askance. 

“We do?” he asked, looking at Peter and then back at her again. 

“We do,” she said. “Because it makes perfect sense and we’ve learned our lesson about trusting our friends.”

Bruce looked like he wanted to say that  _ he  _ hadn’t learned any such lesson, but Nat wasn’t done. 

“And we think Peter’s a smart guy, and we’re going to support him no matter what because that’s how you treat your friends whether or not you’re worried about them, because otherwise you lose them, don’t you?”

Peter made a face at that last line, but it seemed to have cleared up Bruce’s unstated objections, too. Tony was already hunching his shoulders and glancing around the room like he was working up to saying something he wasn’t happy about. 

“Fine,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and looking at Peter. “Whatever. You’re dating the guy. I’ll drop it. But if he turns out to be a jackass after all, Bruce and I get to deal with him.”

Peter rolled his eyes, but a faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Deal,” he said. He made grateful eye contact with Nat and she shrugged one shoulder. “But you have to get my permission first.”

“This doesn’t count as permission?” Bruce asked. Peter spotted Wade over his shoulder and waved at him. 

“Nope, it’s gotta be in the moment,” he said, already smiling at Wade as he came closer. “I’ve gotta say, ‘Yeah, go ahead, beat him up for me.’”

“Who’re we beating up for you, baby boy?” Wade asked as he reached their group. “I thought you were all about the nonviolent communication?”

Peter leaned into him when he took his place at Peter’s side, and grinned. “That’s right, I am.”


	13. Chapter 13

**December 16th**

The now-familiar tapping on Peter’s window always felt a little bit like a failure. He never even bothered locking it anymore, so by the time he was sitting up and climbing out of bed, Wade was already easing himself down off the windowsill and sliding across the mattress, slowly kicking off his shoes onto the floor. Peter flicked on his desk lamp and took a wary look at him, but then, the injuries weren’t usually immediately visible.

Something about that made Peter incredibly angry. Wade said his dad was drunk and seemed to think that explained why he couldn’t keep his temper, but he had enough control to avoid incriminating himself by giving his kid any visible marks. Except over Thanksgiving break, when no one from the school would see it. And quite possibly the scarring that covered the one side of Wade’s face. Peter still hadn’t quite dared to ask. He didn’t think he wanted to hear the answer right now, anymore than Wade would want to tell it.

He wanted to go over to Wade’s house and... and... have his father arrested, frankly. Wouldn’t that do it? Wouldn’t that keep him from being able to take Wade and run again? Peter wasn’t sure  _ how _ to make it happen, exactly, but he wanted it very badly. 

“Hey, baby boy,” Wade said in a sharp, dark voice that said he was still upset about whatever had happened, lowering himself slowly onto his stomach on the bed. That meant his back hurt. 

Peter glared at nothing, feeling as angry as Wade sounded, but kept his voice soft when he said, “Hey, hot stuff. Just a second.” 

He went to his knees next to the bed and kissed Wade on the forehead, then went to get a damp cloth and the first aid kit, which had gotten a lot more comprehensive in the past few weeks.

Wade already had his shirt most of the way up by the time Peter got back, and he helped him slide it the rest of the way over his head, then gently pressed the cool, damp material to the bruises he could see blossoming already, wincing whenever Wade flinched. At least there was no blood, this time. Peter felt sick for even having had the thought. 

Wade was going to stay the night. He always stayed after Peter patched him up, because Peter wouldn’t let him go home. He’d explained before that once Tom got it out of his system, he usually passed out, but frankly, Peter didn’t give a shit. Wade shouldn’t have to ever sleep in the same house as that... person. He’d make Wade sleep here every night if he thought he could get away with it.

“I fucking hate him,” Wade said into the quiet of the room, while Peter was spreading bruise cream over a spot on his back. 

“Yeah,” Peter agreed, and had to bite his own tongue to stop himself from adding, ‘ _ Let’s call the police and tell them all about it.’ _

It was a conversation they’d already had half a dozen times, and every time, it just served to work Wade up when he should be laying down and not hurting himself any more. Peter was pretty sure he’d ended up with a bruised rib last time, and there was no way that was healed yet. 

Facedown on Peter’s bed, Wade didn’t notice this internal conflict, and kept talking. “He called my mom a-- a whore. He said she cheated on him and that’s why he was stuck with me.”

Peter blinked. He’d never heard this story before, and judging by the tone of Wade’s voice, he hadn’t either. “That’s not... it can’t be true,” he said slowly.

“No, it fucking  _ can’t _ ,” Wade agreed, pushing up onto one elbow in his outrage. Peter put a hand on his back and applied gentle pressure til he laid back down and continued his rant from there. “Which is what I fucking  _ said, _ cause why the  _ fuck _ would you keep a kid that’s not yours if you didn’t even want him in the-- in-- he  _ wouldn’t  _ have. And  _ she _ wouldn’t have, anyway.”

“He just talks bullshit,” Peter said, echoing something Wade said pretty frequently.

“ _ Bullshit, _ ” Wade agreed emphatically. Peter folded the damp cloth and pressed it to his forehead, and Wade sighed, closing his eyes. “I had an idea anyway.”

“Really?” Peter asked, his interest piqued. Maybe Wade was finally willing to let Peter help him change his situation. Maybe he had a plan for how to stay in town once they got his dad arrested, and maybe even deported. They deported Canadians, right? Peter thought he’d seen a movie about that, once.

“Yeah. You’re a science nerd.”

“I am,” Peter agreed with a frown. He didn’t see how that could help them. This had better not be a tangent.

“So, okay, I had an idea,” Wade said again. He sounded more nervous, this time. “And I did some research at the library, and, uh... I kinda need your help to understand what the fuck I read.”

“Oh, okay. I can do that,” Peter said, though he was still wondering what science had to do with it. Maybe Wade just meant he was smart in general?

“Yeah, so... it was this article about like... autopsies and whether you could really tell the difference between, uh... like rubbing alcohol and drinking alcohol, y’know? I couldn’t really figure out what they were talking about, it was all kinds of big words and science shit and I didn’t understand it.”

“Autopsies?” Peter asked blankly. “Wade, what are you talking about?”

“I just thought,” Wade said, pushing himself up to his elbow again so he could look at Peter. He was starting to sound sort of desperate now. “I just figured, I mean. Rubbing alcohol, it’s super fuckin’ poisionous, but it’s basically all the same symptoms as if you just drank way too much normal alcohol.”

Peter stared at him as he spoke, his heart suddenly pounding in his ears. Wade kept talking, speaking faster now, his eyes dropping back down to look at the bed. 

“So I just wondered, I mean, they prob’ly wouldn’t even  _ do _ an autopsy, but if they  _ did, _ would they... I mean, would they know? Can you look at the paper and--”

“I am  _ not _ going to help you  _ kill someone, _ Wade!” Peter said, his voice coming out breathless and half strangled.

“I’m not askin’ you to help, Peter,” Wade responded, pushing himself up into a sitting position, and it was so  _ hard _ to look at him like this and not see _ why _ he’d think this idea was a good one, but just  _ wasn’t _ , and Peter  _ couldn’t _ . “It’s just a hypothetical question. I’ll print off the article at the library, no one’ll ever know you even saw it.”

“You’re asking me to help,” Peter said in a rough voice, staring at him. “This is asking me to help, Wade. I know about it now, anyway. If you do it, I’ll  _ know _ and I’ll have to  _ lie _ and you’ll have  _ killed _ someone, and you’ll have _ killed someone! _ ”

His voice had gotten louder and louder as he spoke, until he remembered his aunt was still sleeping down the hall, and lowered it back to a bare whisper.

“I  _ can’t _ help you do this, Wade. You shouldn’t do this.”

Wade had leaned back against the wall behind Peter’s bed as he spoke, one arm wrapped around his ribs, and just looked incredulous. “What else can I do? What  _ else _ am I gonna do, Peter?!”

“Call the--”

“It  _ doesn’t work that way _ ,” Wade erupted, looking briefly furious. “You call the cops? They come check in, and by the time they get there, he’s minding his own business and lookin’ calm and collected, and he says ‘this fuckin’ kid gets in fights at school all the time, you can ask anyone, sorry they wasted your time, pal,’ and then he and the cops laugh about it and then they leave and then  _ we leave. _ ”

Peter pressed his palms against his eyes under his glasses and said, “There has to be  _ something _ we can do.”

“Yeah,” Wade agreed in a flat voice. “There is. I think rubbing alcohol tastes bad on purpose, but I bet there’s a way to get hold of something that doesn’t have the additives--”

“ _ Stop it! _ ” Peter hissed, tears springing to his eyes. “Wade, stop it! We can’t  _ kill _ him!”

“ _ You’re _ not doin’ anything, baby boy, I wouldn’t ask you--”

Peter shook his head and stood up to start packing up the first aid kit, needing something to distract him. His hands were shaking. “You’re already asking me, Wade, this is enough, this  _ counts _ .”

“Then forget I said anything,” Wade said suddenly, his jaw clenched, his gestures jerky and haphazard. “Just-- it was a joke, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

“Just let me help you,” Peter responded, shoving the first aid kit into his nightstand. Wade stared at him, but didn’t say what they both knew he was thinking. Peter heard it anyway, and sat down on the bed, hiding his face in his hands. After a minute, he felt Wade’s hand on his back, rubbing soothingly, and he sat up, snapping, “Don’t.”

Wade’s hand was snatched away, and Peter turned around to see him looking hurt. He softened immediately. 

“I just meant-- you’re the one that’s--” He took a deep, shuddery breath and pulled the blankets back, climbing back into the bed. “I’m sorry. Just... come here.”

Wade moved slowly, and Peter had the sense that it wasn’t just because of his injuries. It felt like caution, and that kind of hurt. 

In the end, Wade lay half on his stomach, head pillowed on Peter’s shoulder, and Peter brushed a gentle hand through his hair until he could feel that Wade’s breathing had evened out and steadied.

This was beyond out of hand. Peter was in so far over his head he was surprised he hadn’t drowned already. Wade was well on his way there. 

He should’ve told Aunt May weeks ago. 

\------

**18 December**

Wade spent as little time at home these days as physically possible. It was actually pretty easy, because he spent nearly all his time with Peter. Peter, who didn’t mind that Wade wanted to be around him all the time, because he wanted Wade to practically live in his pocket. 

That might just be because he seemed perpetually afraid of Wade going home, but hell. Wade would take it. Wade wanted to swim in it, even if the pool was full of crocodiles and it felt like he’d tossed Peter in the deep end.

He wished pretty regularly that he hadn’t spilled all his secrets to Peter in that moment of weakness back in November. It was just that... he’d kept asking, and worrying, and he thought Wade was getting himself hurt on purpose, and that was so fucking backward it was almost insulting when you compared it with what was actually going on. Wade hadn’t been able to help it. 

He shouldn’t have mentioned the fucking rubbing alcohol idea either, but he really hadn’t been able to figure out any of the sciencey articles he’d found, and he needed to know how likely he was to end up in jail. He was gonna do it either way, probably.

Well, not right now. Not right away. Peter’s face when he’d realized what Wade was asking... 

He had to stop doing shit like this to Peter. MJ was right. He didn’t need it. Peter was the last person who needed any of this. Peter needed someone to take care of him, not someone to pile all their problems on his shoulders and watch him collapse under them.  _ He _ was the good guy with too many stones on his chest, and Wade was just climbing up with another armful and sitting his stupid ass right on top of the pile.

And now... Wade could tell that everyone, including Aunt May (who he loved almost as much as he loved Peter) thought that all Peter’s anxiety and stress and everything else was because of Christmas or... it’d be Hanukahh, wouldn’t it? But they thought it was about him dealing with the holidays and his uncle being dead and all, anyway. 

And he probably was pretty fucked up about that, and that made it worse, because Wade knew he was a hell of a lot more fucked up over having to know about Wade’s dad.

He wished he could take it back. Get one of those Men in Black flashy thingies and tell Peter he’d just spent two weeks on a tropical beach, learning how to feel better about life and that he was gonna be happy from now on. You could do that with the flashy thingies in the movie. Replace bad memories with fake good ones. He’d do that for Peter if he could.

It was one of those rare nights, tonight, when he actually got home pretty early, because Peter had his class with the sexy, intimidating, intimidatingly sexy Nat, who Wade might’ve been worried about if she didn’t clearly consider Peter a kid brother type. 

Mostly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when Peter was busy, Wade went out and wandered, maybe tracked down Nate and his crew to see what they were up to, or went down to Coney Island to sit with his feet in the water. Sometimes he went to Logan’s place, if he was sure there weren’t any good hockey games on.

He was home by four thirty today because there  _ was  _ a hockey game on. Logan liked the Sabres even though they were from upstate, so he had a feeling Tom was gonna be over at his, watching them play Philly. 

He’d convinced Harry to lend him his old Assassin’s Creed disc for the 360, because Harry had an Xbox One and never even used his old stuff anymore. Neena had a point about rich friends. 

He was sitting through a cut scene when he heard the snick of the lock, and the front door burst open. Wade stared at his dad in shock, his heart hammering from the unexpectedness of his arrival. 

And worse still, he had boxes. 

“No,” Wade said involuntarily. Tom looked pretty sober, which made this worse. It meant he was serious. 

“Had somebody come in while you were out fucking around after school earlier,” Tom said briskly, dropping half the boxes in the living room and heading into the kitchen. “Get packin’.”

Wade’s heart was in his throat. He didn’t  _ want _ to go. He’d never wanted to stay somewhere more in his entire life. They’d been here three whole months already, and he had real friends for once. He had a fucking boyfriend. He had  _ Peter _ . He wasn’t leaving him. 

“I’m not going,” Wade said in a wavery voice. Tom opened up one of the cabinets and started shoving plastic dishes and cups into a box. He didn’t even acknowledge that Wade had spoken. Wade cleared his throat and tried to raise his voice; ended up yelling it. “I’m staying here!”

Tom turned around and looked at him like he was an idiot. “You gonna pay rent on this place all by yourself? Did you not hear me? One’a those frigid fuckin’ CPS cock holsters were in here earlier. We’re leaving.”

Wade stood up and tossed his controller on the floor, shaking his head, although he felt cornered already, ready to run the second Tom moved but not sure which direction he should go. 

“Fuck you, I’m staying,” he said. 

Tom slammed the box of dishes down on the counter with a snarl. 

Wade startled, taking one step toward the front door before realizing Tom would get there first. He turned around instead and yanked open the window. Without hesitation, he dove out onto the fire escape with a clang and experienced a moment of pure terror and adrenaline as Tom’s hand caught hold of his shoe before he could drag himself out of the way. 

He shouted and shoved his body as far away from the window as possible, then yanked his foot out of his sneaker. He had to half crawl, half fall down the first set of metal stairs on his elbows and knees, and rolled as he reached the next little landing. Ignoring the cursing and clanging he could hear from their floor, he scrambled down and down and down, and eventually jumped, landing painfully in the alley with just one shoe on and taking off down the street as fast as his feet would carry him. He didn’t waste any time in looking back to see if he was actually being followed, or how close. 

Wade ran until he stepped on something sharp and had to slow down. He looked back with a kind of terrified conviction that Tom would be at most ten, maybe twenty feet behind him, but there was no one there. 

He took the subway the rest of the way to Peter’s house, standing on one foot and watching his sock slowly stain red and start to drip. Even the homeless guy slumped in a seat at the other end of the train car looked annoyed at him. Nobody liked blood in public areas. He rested his sock on top of his sneaker so he would at least take most of it with him when he left.

The rest of the walk to Peter’s place was slower than usual, but that was fine. Wade needed time to think about what he was going to say. He didn’t want it to end up shouting, ‘What the  _ fuck _ did you do?!’

Not  _ just _ that, anyway. 

He reached Peter’s door, then realized he didn’t want to go in there all bloody and ruin May’s floors. 

He called instead. 

“Wade?” Peter asked, answering on the second ring. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Wade said, sitting down on Peter’s front step and resting his shoeless leg on his knee to look at the bottom of his foot. It was just glass. He pulled it out, hissing between his teeth, and tossed it in the bushes. “Did you tell someone?”

Peter didn’t answer at first, which told Wade everything he needed to know. 

“Did... did someone come?” Peter asked, his voice almost inaudible.

“They did,” Wade confirmed, and at first he thought he was breathing so hard and fast because he was angry. When he spoke next, he realized with horror that it was because he was about to  _ cry _ . “And my dad was there, and I wasn’t, and now they’re gone and he’s packing.”

“Fuck,” Peter said, which was almost as shocking as anything else that’d happened today. “Fuck, Wade, I’m sorry, I thought they’d wait for you-- my aunt said--”

“I  _ told _ you this was gonna happen, Peter!” Wade shouted. 

Peter didn’t answer at first, and when he did, he sounded upset and confused. “Wait, are you outside? I’ll come down, hang on, don’t--”

“No.” Wade didn’t want to see Peter anymore. He didn’t want the last time Peter saw him to be like this. He sniffed hard and stood up, leaving a bloody footprint on the front step. “Fuck I-- tell May I’m sorry about the... I gotta go.”

“Wade, no, just wait a second,” Peter said. Wade slid his shoe off and put it on the wrong foot. Even if it was uncomfortable, that at least kept the blood from getting everywhere as he limped away as fast as he could. He turned the first corner he came to, and the next one too. 

He could hear Peter a couple blocks away, calling for him, and his phone kept buzzing, but he was crying and he couldn’t have a fucking conversation like that, not with Peter. He was too angry with him, and he  _ knew _ deep down that Peter felt worse than he should already, and if Wade talked to him any more, he’d twist the knife. He’d hurt Peter enough.

\-----

He didn’t know where else to go, and his foot wouldn’t stop fucking  _ bleeding _ , so he ended up going to Logan’s place. 

When he got there, he lifted his shirt and used it to dry his face off as best he could before he knocked, but it didn’t make a difference. Logan opened the door and stared at him openly, the half finished cigar in his mouth looking like it might fall out at any second.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked, stepping aside so Wade could come in. He limped slowly over the threshold, looking around Logan’s cheap apartment and thinking this was probably gonna be the last time he saw it, either. Regret swamped him, settling like pain in his chest and clogging up his throat.

He should’ve waited for Peter to come outside. Who fucking cared if he saw Wade crying? Why the fuck would he care? He still would’ve  _ seen  _ him one more time.

Wade’s jaw clenched and he breathed hard through his nose, refusing to start crying again. Logan appeared in his line of sight, holding a bunch of bandages and-- some rubbing alcohol. 

“I don’t wanna move away,” Wade wept, sitting down abruptly on the floor. Logan stared at him for a second, then knelt down in front of him and tugged his sock off his uninjured foot. It was covered in blood too, so it wasn’t surprising that he started there. 

It turned out it wasn’t as uninjured as Wade thought, because when Logan picked up some gauze and started dabbing at it, the alcohol stung like a bitch. 

“Your daddy wants you to move already?” Logan said after a minute, once he’d decided that foot was both clean enough and definitely not the source of most of the blood. He eased the shoe off Wade’s other foot, not necessarily gentle, but not causing further injury, either. 

“We had a-- someone came to check on me,” Wade said, his voice cracking with misery. He watched Logan peel the bloodied sock off and drop it into the shoe, which was similarly soaked red right through. “We always leave when that happens. I don’t wanna leave. He’s packing right now.”

Logan stared at the bloody mess of Wade’s foot as he spoke, then got up to wet a whole bath towel in the sink and came back. 

“You just got here,” he said, his voice gruff. He didn’t seem to have any particular opinion at all about Wade’s foot, or what he was saying. Wade couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. It probably didn’t fucking matter. He was probably gonna clean Wade up and send him back to Tom to disappear. Who knew where they’d go next. 

“We’ve been here a long time,” Wade disagreed unwillingly. He leaned forward to hug his other leg as Logan started wiping at the blood with the towel, which he was probably gonna have to toss in the trash after this.

Wade was shaking. He could see it in the way Logan had to hold his foot still to assess the damage once he’d cleaned it. 

“Gonna need stitches,” he said eventually. He got up and went into the bathroom again, and Wade sat on the floor by himself and pulled the neck of his shirt up over his face, trying to get ahold of himself. 

His phone was still buzzing, every few minutes. Something ached horribly in his chest. 

He startled and pulled away when something touched his foot, but it was just Logan again, squinting at him. He had a suture kit on the floor by his knee. Wade slowly returned his foot to Logan’s hand, and he examined it one more time. 

“Don’t have any anesthetic,” he said, which explained the bottle of whiskey he was offering Wade. “Three swallows. No more.”

Wade took the bottle, and Logan waited. He uncapped it and took a large gulp, then sputtered and coughed. He’d heard it burned on the way down, but knowing something and experiencing it were two really different things. 

“Two more,” Logan said, still holding onto Wade’s foot. Wade took two more, smaller swallows, handling it better now that he knew what to expect. His vision went a little fuzzy faster than he’d expected, and he stared at Logan with helpless bewilderment. “You lost a lot of blood, looks like,” he said, which was only kind of an explanation. “Now hold still.”

It still hurt, when Logan pushed the needle into Wade’s foot, but it felt almost like it was hurting someone else, so that was probably okay. Wade almost immediately laid down on his back and stared up at the ceiling cracks, dazed. 

He almost didn’t notice when it was finished, but Logan helped him sit back up, then picked him up and put him on the couch. He lifted the back of Wade’s shirt, which was weird, and then lowered it again and helped him lay down. 

Maybe an hour later, maybe two, someone banged on the door, startling Wade awake. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He could hear Logan getting up and sliding the chain off the lock.

“Is the kid ready to go?”

It was Tom. Wade’s heart rabbited into high gear without warning, and his hands started shaking. Logan had called Tom. 

“You got all his shit?” Logan asked, in the same calm, gruff voice he’d used ever since the day Wade met him. He should’ve known Logan would sell him out. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“In the truck,” Tom said. “Where is he?”

“Bring it all up here,” Logan said, instead of answering. “Then go shove the rest up your ass.”

In the silence that followed, Wade stared at the back of the couch, trying to work out what had just happened, because it sounded like--

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Tom growled, apparently having come to the same conclusion Wade had. 

Wade heard rapid footsteps toward the couch, and he’d already rolled onto the floor and started to crawl away when he heard a heavy thud. Huddled behind the recliner, he poked his head out and saw that Logan had Tom shoved up against the wall, an actual switchblade held to his throat. He was shorter, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was blood already trickling down Tom’s neck.

“Leave the kid’s shit on the curb and get out of my fuckin’ country,” Logan said, enunciating every word. “Understand?”

He waited til Tom growled something that sounded like an agreement, then grabbed his collar and hauled him to the door. Wade leaned against the back of the recliner and loved him with every bone in his body as he slammed the door shut and locked it.

Logan came back over to the living room and looked around til he spotted Wade. 

“Floor’s not for sitting, cut that shit out,” he said, and hauled Wade to his feet, depositing him back on the couch. A minute later, he had a blanket tossed over him. 

He just lay there for a while, afraid that Tom might come back with cops or something, and he’d end up having to go with him anyway. Logan left for part of that time, and came back in with two boxes, dropping them in the corner of the room.

Wade pulled the blanket over his head the next time his phone buzzed, and texted Peter with fingers that fumbled and touched all the wrong letters. It took him five minutes to compose a legible text. 

_ everythings fine. sory for worry. Staying w Logan Ithink - WW _

While he waited for a response, he scrolled through the dozens of increasingly frantic messages Peter had sent him over the last few hours, guilty and warmed by his concern in turns. 

When Peter called again, Wade had to answer, even though Logan was now sitting in the recliner, watching something on TV.

“Wade?” Peter asked, before he even got a chance to speak. He sounded like he’d been crying. “What’s going on, I’m so sorry, fuck, I’m so, so sorry, I  _ know _ I shouldn’t have said anything, are you okay? You were bleeding-- there’s so much blood here, oh my god, Wade, are you still in town? Do you need me to come get you?”

“Pete, Pete,” Wade said, whispering even though Logan was literally  _ right there _ and could definitely hear every word. “It’s okay, I’m okay. I’m at Logan’s apartment.”

“Logan--” Peter stopped and took an audible breath. “But isn’t he your dad’s friend?”

“Nope,” Logan said calmly. Wade peeked out from under the blanket, but Logan was watching Formula One and not looking at him. He pulled it back over his head.

“I guess not anymore,” he said. He was still whispering. He felt foolish, but he didn’t think he could actually talk much louder than this right now, and Peter was being loud enough for both of them, if Logan could hear him well enough to participate in the conversation.

“So wait, what are you doing? Are you staying there? Is he gonna let you live with him?”

Wade wished he wasn’t asking all these questions so loudly. He didn’t want to hear the answers yet. He couldn’t think about what he was supposed to do, now. He fumbled for the volume on his phone, but the damage was already done.

“I got a spare room in the back,” Logan said. Wade froze, hardly daring to breathe. “More like a big closet. Yer bed’ll probably fit, but that’s about it. We’ll go pick it up tomorrow.”


	14. Epilogue

**17 December**

Wade insisted on going to school the next day. Logan looked at him like he was crazy, but didn’t object and loaned him a pair of boots. All that had been in the boxes was his knapsack, his pillow, and all his dirty clothes. 

Wade limped around impatiently until second period ended and he managed to track Peter down in the math hallway. Peter saw him coming and abruptly stopped talking to MJ, who he’d been walking with, and ran toward him. He skidded to a halt right before he slammed into Wade, then looked him up and down, searching for injuries. 

Wade was nowhere near as cautious, and scooped Peter up, catching his jaw in one hand and slotting their mouths together urgently. 

They kept kissing, Peter’s arms around Wade’s shoulders, up on his toes, til one of the teachers shouted at them and Peter pulled away, flushed. Wade would’ve thought it was from the kissing if his eyes weren’t so bright. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered again, and Wade shook his head. 

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s good. You were right, baby boy.”

“I wasn’t,” Peter said, and even he was ignoring Mr. Summers as he told them to break it up and get to class. “It happened just like you said it would.”

“Can you give us a minute, _please,_ ” Wade barked. Mr. Summers must’ve seen the way Peter still looked like he was about to cry, and subsided, although he hovered nearby. To Peter, he said, “It didn’t. I’m still here, aren’t I? I shouldn’t’ve asked you for... any of that. ”

Peter shook his head, and Wade pulled him into a hug. He spoke into his ear, firmly. “If you didn’t say something, everything would still be the same as it was last week. I like it better now. This is better. You were right about telling people, Petey. You did this for me, okay? Thank you.”

Instead of responding, Peter hugged Wade tighter, and they stood there together until Mr. Summers cleared his throat.

“Nurse’s office or class,” he said, when Wade looked up at him. 

“Nurse,” he said, and Mr. Summers held out two passes, as though he’d expected it. Wade wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders as they walked away down the hall, and thought Nate might’ve had a point about his dad being pretty cool, for a charter school teacher. 

\--------

**March 21st**

Today was Uncle Ben’s headstone unveiling. Peter stood in the graveyard between Aunt May and Wade, looking at the cloth that covered his gravestone. Wanda, Pietro, and their dad were somewhere to Peter’s right, and MJ stood on Aunt May’s other side with her arm around May’s waist. He had one of his hands folded behind his back so that MJ’s fingers could link with his. 

Peter didn’t actually know how many people were there, but at a glance, it was way more than what they needed for a minyan. He didn’t even recognize everyone. The rabbi recited the Psalms, and then the cloth was removed. 

The stone was plain, but beautiful, Aunt May leaned into Peter as they examined it again, and Peter wrapped his free arm around her shoulders. 

Next was _Kel Malay Rachamim_ , and the Mourner’s Kaddish. When Aunt May went up to give the eulogy, Peter blinked a lot and stared at her hands while she spoke. She talked about how Ben had been honest and loving and giving, and had gone out of his way to help others, even to a fault, even at great cost to himself. 

Wade’s hand tucked into his elbow and stayed there. Peter glanced at him and found him looking unusually solemn. He nudged Wade with his elbow, and when he looked at Peter, he smiled at him. Wade leaned in and kissed his temple, and whispered into his ear.

“He sounds just like you, baby boy.” 

Peter had managed a sort of quiet stoicism so far, but _that_ was too much. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he furrowed his brow, determined to hold himself together. Wade’s arm slid around his waist and held him close to his side. When Aunt May came back to stand next to him again, she pulled him into a hug.

\----

The stones piled up on the gravestone by the end of the service nearly obscured the engraving:

 _Ben Parker, Loving Husband and Uncle_ _  
_ _‘When you help someone, you help everyone.’_

Peter gave it one final glance, then turned and walked with Aunt May and Wade out of the graveyard, feeling more calm and centered than he would have predicted. 

“We’re going to be just fine, Peter,” May told him, catching sight of his expression as they walked back to the synagogue, where everyone was meeting again for the reception. Several people had offered them a ride, but they’d wanted the time alone. Wade tugged Peter closer as they walked, and he leaned into him, giving Aunt May a small smile when she squeezed his elbow.

“We are,” Peter agreed. 


End file.
